Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day lands on a Monday this year, Oct. 26. There are good chicken fries all over Dallas, but if you want to mark the day properly, get on U.S. 377 and drive out to Stephenville. Jake & Dorothy’s Cafe has been frying them there for 78 years.
Jake and Dorothy Roach opened the place on June 12, 1948. They built a one-story masonry building at 406 E. Washington St. and named the café after themselves. It caught on fast, and by 1953 they had already added on to the building three times. The café is still in that same building today, and it has never stopped operating.
The holiday is a lot newer. In 2011 the Texas House passed House Resolution 1419 recognizing Oct. 26 as Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day. The idea came from Dallas restaurateur Jeffrey Yarbrough and singer Jimmy Baldwin. State Rep. Ralph Sheffield, who owned a restaurant in Temple, brought it to the House floor. The resolution connects the dish to the Wiener schnitzel German immigrants brought to Texas and to the pan-fried steak that was a favorite of Texas cowboys. It also points out that people across the state have been eating it for generations, which was hardly news to anyone in Stephenville.
At Jake & Dorothy’s, the chicken fried steak is cut fresh and breaded by hand, and it’s served on a bed of cream gravy. Putting the gravy underneath keeps the crust crisp.
Most people order it with the waffle fries, and there’s a story behind those. Stephenville likes to say the waffle fry was invented in this café in 1948, and the city’s tourism office says so too. It’s hard to prove who cut the first one anywhere. What’s on record is that Jake made his own potato cutter, and according to his daughter, the café still uses it.
His daughter is Kerry Roach. She grew up working in the café and owns it now. Jake died in 1982 and Dorothy died in 1997. Back in 2000, she told a local paper she grew up in the café, and the same story pointed out how little the place had changed over the years.
She’s also a well-known name around town for reasons that have nothing to do with chicken fried steak. In 2007, Stephenville High School inducted her into its Athletic Hall of Fame. In a town that calls itself the City of Champions, that matters. The Yellow Jackets have eaten at the café for decades, and so have visiting teams, and Tarleton State alumni put it on their list whenever they’re back in town. In 2022, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football named Jake & Dorothy’s the Best Game Day Grub in Texas.
Texas Monthly has named it one of the 40 best small-town cafés in the state twice, first in 2008 and again in 2022. In 2023 the Texas Historical Commission gave the café a Texas Treasure Business Award, which recognizes businesses that have been open in Texas for more than 50 years. That June, Stephenville’s mayor declared June 12 Jake & Dorothy’s Café Day.
The menu covers breakfast, hamburgers, onion rings and homemade pie. On the 26th, though, order the chicken fried steak with waffle fries. Have a slice of pie after if you still have room.
CraveDFW has written about this café before, about its chicken fried steak and pie and about last year’s holiday. It hasn’t changed between visits, and nobody in Stephenville would want it to.
Jake & Dorothy’s Cafe is at 406 E. Washington St. in Stephenville, a little over an hour southwest of Fort Worth. Call (254) 965-5211 to check hours before you go.
