Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day is Monday, October 26, and if you want to celebrate it properly, consider a road trip to a convenience store in Belton. The woman behind one of the most talked-about chicken fried steaks in Texas has a secret, and it is a good one. She does not eat it.
Ailehs Gaines owns Expo Quik Stop, a family-run gas station and convenience store at 308 W. Loop 121, about two hours south of Dallas on Interstate 35. We told you about its chicken fried steak back in July. Since then the legend has only grown, and in a new profile in NACS Magazine, the convenience store industry’s trade publication, Gaines revealed the twist. She is a vegetarian.
It has not slowed her down one bit. The steak, sold as Uncle Bob’s Chicken Fried Steak, comes from a family recipe, but making it enormous was Gaines’ idea. It started as a Thursday special. When she added Wednesday to the schedule, she told the magazine, things got really crazy. Now, on those two days, she cooks somewhere between 300 and 500 steaks a day, and she does it in the kitchen by herself. “I never knew chicken-fried steak was so popular,” she said.
The rest of the world found out the same way most of us find out about anything these days. Food influencers started posting it, and one Instagram video passed 6 million views. Gaines says she now gets calls from across the country and from as far away as Bolivia, France and India, from people asking if she will ship it. She will not. If you want one, you have to come to Belton. The town is proud enough of it that the steak rode in Belton’s Fourth of July parade, with an employee dressed up as a chicken fried steak.
It has turned a gas station into a destination. There is a Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich on the menu, too, if you need something you can eat behind the wheel. And Expo is not a one-dish wonder. Gaines also cooks Cajun favorites, including frog legs, which she says sell out, and fried alligator served with a house blend she calls swamp sauce. She does not use a recipe for that, either.
Now for the planning part, because timing matters. Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day falls on a Monday this year, and Uncle Bob’s is only served on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. So make a week of it. Celebrate close to home on the 26th, then point the car south that Wednesday or Thursday, October 28 or 29, or go the week before. Get there early.
The state made this holiday official in 2011 with a House resolution honoring a dish born from German immigrants, cattle country and a lot of hot grease. It seems fitting that one of its best modern versions comes from a gas station counter, made by hand, by somebody who does not eat it herself.
Expo Quik Stop is at 308 W. Loop 121 in Belton. Uncle Bob’s Chicken Fried Steak is served Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call 254-933-3976 before you make the drive.
