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Memories of the Maid Rite Sandwich Shop: Best of Du Quoin in era of mining and celebrities

Posted July 27, 2016 11:00 pm

JOHN CROESSMAN jcroessman@duquoin.com

Taking my 2010 Maid Rite tourism ornament out of the box the other day set off a thousand memories about what was arguably Du Quoin's most-traveled haunt among the dozens of local sandwich shops and restaurants in this city.

So-much-so that we need to turn back the clock to the 1960s and 70s, stand in the kitchen with Frank, Marguerite, Paul and Frank Fox, Jr. and Patty Cook Davison and serve up a brown paper bag full of the best loose meat sandwiches and chicken-in-the basket take-outs on earth. The third of the three Fox children was Barbara Fox, a great woman, but less involved with the day-to-day operation of the restaurant.

It was the place where "court" was held. It was the place were elections were won and lost. Friday night football and basketball games were relived over coffee. All the town's gossip was fodder that fell harmlessly on a coffee counter that was the heart and soul of Du Quoin.

It had a kitchen where towering Du Quoin State Fair comedian Red Skelton stooped through the doorway to tell everybody "thank you and may God bless." It had a kitchen where oft-times 80-90 take-out orders a day of sandwiches and chicken would be prepared for the United Electric and Consol mines all around us.

It was the place responsible for cutting off local ministers in mid-message so you would be sure to get a seat before the restaurant began filling at 11 a.m. on Sunday.

It was home to a dozen community club meetings each month.

Paul Fox remembers that for Du Quoin State Fair entertainers it was the one memory they took back to Las Vegas or Hollywood that stayed with them moreso than their grandstand performance.

The carry-out business alone made a fulltime job for "Uncle Ray" whose front seat was filled with sandwiches, chicken and homemade apple, cherry and cream pies.

Patty Cook (now Davison) was the First Lady of it all, making sure all were served quickly and that the ice tea and coffee were always topped off. She is the only one that still harbours the Maid Rite's sandwich recipe--actually a very simple steamed meat, onion and mustard recipe (see back page). Fort Knox had the only other copy of that formula.

I remember back in 1965 when the National Campers and Hikers Association (NCHA) turned the fairgrounds into a city of 20,000 campers and the counter at the restaurant was blanketed with hundreds of lapel pins representing chapters from across the United States and all around the world.

And, I remember a very understanding state policeman Gerald Miller escorting me and brother Allen back to the house on Main Street "suggesting" we didn't take mom and dad's Lincoln to the Maid Rite again BEFORE we had a driver's license. Bad night. Great memory!

The Maid Rite was the Southern stop on a Friday and Saturday night teenage cruise between there and the old Dairy Queen on North Hickory Street that would put the Street Machine Nationals to shame.

The screen door on the back of the restaurant must have swung open a million times for all of us.

While the Maid Rite was the center of the universe, it certainly shared a following with several restaurants that had or still have a huge loyalty as well as some hometown favorites.

• Well over a million pizzas and world class friendships at Alongi's.

• Popcorn balls at Pop Axley's "Muff sed".

• Barbecue at Southern Barbecue on West Main..

• Italian beef sandwich at a small restaurant just south of Dairy Queen on North Hickory

• Eclairs at Geigers Bakery on West Main.

• Open faced roast beef sandwiches at the "Greeks" Candy Kitchen on Main.

• Blue Bell ham.

• Doughnuts at Velma and Walter Wickman's grocery on South Washington.

•Chili at Pflanz Tavern on East Main.

• Fresh roasted nuts at the Economy Variety Store on East Main.

• Pronto pups and fiddle sticks at the Du Quoin State Fair.

The list goes on and on. Dozens of great places over the decades.

History of the Maid Rite

Actually, the Maid Rite was a partnership between two great men --the late Frank Fox and Joe Childs--who owned and operated it between the 1950s and its closure around March 1992.

Joe's son, John Child's, shares the substance of Joe's eight-page written history of the restaurant.

The real beginning of the Maid Rite started in 1927 when Joe was an office clerk for Illinois Power and Light Co. The plant sold ice and the ice truck driver wanted to make some extra money so he had built on barbecue stand on the location of the future Maid Rite.

Years later, Mr. Henry Schickedanz was able to get a Maid Rite franchise. Those franchises sold for $300. He sold the business to his brother, who sold it to his son, Carl. It was no secret, most of the receipts and cash register tapes went into a box in the back, not in the cash register.

In 1951 Carl Schickedanz decided he wanted to go west and buy a motel so he sold the Maid Rite.

Joe said he did not know about the planned sale until Frank Fox came to the Ford garage to find him. Joe was a bookkeeper there and he wanted to know if Joe would be his partner in buying it. the money was a little tough to come up with since Frank was driving a delivery truck for Theobald's Bakery for $40 a week and Joe was making $55 a week at the Ford garage.

Joe and Helen had $6,000 saved. With the family's help he raised a total of $10,000. "My good wife never questioned what I was about to do and I was too optimistic to realize the chances I was taking.

Frank did somewhat the same thing. "We had no experience in business, but we were honest and trusted each other," Joe writes. Frank had some experience working for a time at the Southern Barbecue.

Military service interrupted Joe for a time.

He remembers that besides raising the money to buy the business his responsibilities included making the deposits, keeping the books, making the monthly and quarterly reports to the IRS and Illinois Department of Revenue, inventory once a month, dealing with the union (he remembers one employee strike because the waitresses and cooks were members of the union) and most things business-related.

Despite all of the hard work, the restaurant lost $600 the first month.

They had a meeting and one of the first things they did was cut a "large" 10 cent glass of milk in half. Other business decisions were made.

"I found out if we did $400 a day in business during the week and $500 to $600 a day on weekends we would make a profit," Joe writes.

Sales grew to $1,000 a day and beyond.

He said Du Quoin fair traffic was tremendous. He also said this city had a lot of great places to eat, but they complemented each other. When Mc Donald's came along "they catered to young people."

"I need to mention the ground our building was on was actually owned by the Hayes family," Joe writes. "We paid rent without a lease agreement and I was afraid one day we would be told to close up," he writes. Hayes laughed and said if Joe and Frank were worried, he'd have a six-year lease written up.

The Hayes family later offered them the property for $50,000 but it was "out of the question"

Don Hayes gave them permission to erect another building on the property to sell inc cream out of.

That part of the business failed and years later when they had a chance tom buy the Dairy Queen on North Hickory Street, "certain circumstances made us give that (idea) up."

They used the profits to take care of their families and pay off mortgages.

The two were running enough money through the Du Quoin State Bank that president Ken Cook loaned them $10,000 for a building renovation with no collateral required--only a bank note.

That money was used to replace the buckets that were catching th "drips" from a leaking roof with a real renovation.

"Our steady customers were the coffee drinkers who stayed l-o-n-g periods of time trying to settle the world and local problems. If they didn't solve it today they would come back the next day and start again."

Longtime friends played jokes on the two owners. An eight-foot tall pile of snow plowed from the parking lot had a sign stuck in it "Rabbits for Sale."

Another joke--not as funny--was a friend who walked in with a drawing to tell them the Maid Rite was sitting on the state's highway right-of-way.

The two men kept the franchise with the Iowa-based Maid Rite company going and co-existed with a Maid Rite that sprang up in Christopher.

Customers loved the Maid Rite loose beef sandwich with its chopped onions, pickles and mustard, but some wanted the "Maid Wrong" without the onions. They catered to it as best they could. Others wanted ketchup and so on.

Over the years old sections of the Maid Rite were torn out and replaced by now construction.

It supported two families, sent children to college and gave a community thousands of priceless memories.

So, that tourism ornament is going back in the box--along with the memories that I will forever hold dear.

God bless the Fox and the Child families for having the vision of making a living with a big sandwich where the delicious ground meat fell out the sides of the bun and made us try and catch it before it hit the paper wrapper.

The Maid Rite Recipe

Patty Cook Davison, an 11-year employee of the Maid Rite, on Wednesday shared the famous Maid Rite sandwich recipe, and it's not the ingredients, but the way you make it.

You start with the ground beef--Campanella's Market had the best. There was a special Maid Rite table with burners under it. You cook the meat on the table and, according to Patty "get it mushy." You let it steam, drain most of the grease and water out of it. You let it stand in a double boiler. You add NO seasoning. You take the bottom half of the bun, paint it with mustard. Put hydrated onions on top of that, add the meat and top with three pickles.

Put the top on the bun, add a Fox Salad and you are in heaven.

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