Hall 'bought the chicken breader,' Barkley said. Walter Hall, chief executive officer at Fair Lanes in the early 1990s, bought the half dozen or more English's restaurants still in operation - along with the chicken recipe.Įnglish's famous fried chicken was on the menu when Hall's son, Wally, introduced Salisbury to Bay Country Meals. 'We expanded to about 21 or 22 locations, many of which were on the western shore.' 'There were a couple of restaurants on the Eastern Shore when Fair Lanes acquired The English Company,' recalled Strausburg, who was a senior executive at the Baltimore firm. He was recalling an era since the 1960s, when a Baltimore owner of a string of bowling allys, Fair Lanes Inc., purchased English's restaurants from the English family. 'I saw the evolution over time as a growth vehicle, and as it became a restaurant company here on the Eastern Shore,' Strausburg said. Wayne Strausburg, director of administration for Wicomico County, arrived on the Lower Shore in 1995 to help the Halls run the company that had acquired the collection of English's restaurants. 'That's our concept: We are trying to take chicken and combine it with fresh, made-from-scratch vegetable dishes.' 'Probably more than half our sales are just in chicken,' he told The Daily Times. Hall family members could not be reached to comment for this article, but in a 2006 article, English's president Wally Hall named chicken the best-seller at Bay Country. When English's restaurants faded from the region, the Hall family business took the recipe to Bay Country Meals. Walter Hall acquired the fried chicken recipe when he bought the collection of English's restaurants in the mid 1990s, say those who worked at the company. 'Visitors to the area would go there and buy chicken to take back with them.' 'Of course, chicken is what made them famous,' Barkley also said. 'All the menu was popular they had baked goods, they developed the sweet potato biscuit for the restaurant when no other place sold sweet potato biscuits that I know of.

'English's developed the formula used on the chicken that it that unique flavor,' said Barkley, who retired from The English Company as catering supervisor in the early 1980s. The dining car-style restaurants were around when Barkley started at English's in the early 1960s, working with James English III, the founder's grandson. 'English's was one of the best restaurants on the Shore and in the state,' said Marion 'Bud' Barkley, who worked at the English's corporation 27 years. 'The closing of Bay Country Meals will allow us to concentrate our efforts on finding a more efficient and profitable vehicle for delivery of our flagship product (English's Chicken) to the consumer, while also addressing the needs of our other business interests,' reads a farewell letter posted on the door at Bay Country Meals.

There's hope that English's fried chicken might land a new place to roost. With it went English's 'famous fried chicken' and other menu staples that transferred to Bay Country from former English's box-car diner restaurants that were fixtures across the Lower Shore since the James English family opened the first one in downtown Salisbury in the 1930s. So the English's chicken legacy lived on - until now?īay Country Meals on North Salisbury Boulevard closed in mid January after several years of home-cooking offerings by the family owned The English Company. Supporters soon learned that English's 'famous fried chicken,' along with signature sweet potato biscuits, homemade soups and fresh vegetables, would land on the menu at the company's newest restaurant, Bay Country Meals. Less than a decade ago, The English Company closed the last of its iconic box-car style diners in Salisbury - with an element of hope. This is not the first time English's fried chicken flew the coop. View Gallery: English's through the years

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