If you want to understand how chicken fried steak became Dallas’ everyday dinner, start at the corner of Cedar Springs Road and Reagan Street.
In 1975, Gene Street and his partner Phil Cobb opened the first Black-eyed Pea there, in a brick building that dates to 1933. The food was what people’s mothers made, and in Street’s case that was literal. Many of the recipes came from his own mother in Salado. There were fried okra, squash casserole, warm rolls in a basket, and a chicken fried steak that covered most of the plate under a pour of cream gravy.
It caught on fast. Black-eyed Pea spread across Texas and beyond, and for a generation of Dallas families, chicken fried steak meant a booth at the Pea. Street and Cobb sold the chain in 1986, and it changed hands several times after that. Street’s name stayed on other Dallas restaurants, including Good Eats Cafe and Cool River. But the original stayed on Cedar Springs, and Street kept the building.
There’s a twist in the story. According to his son Marco, Gene Street originally meant for Black-eyed Pea to be a fried chicken restaurant. The customers had other ideas, and chicken fried steak became the dish everyone remembered.
The original Black-eyed Pea closed in January 2016 after four decades. A few months later, the next generation reopened the building as Street’s Fine Chicken. Gene Street’s children, Gene Jr., Marco, Mariel and Dace, ran it with their cousin Tony Street, who was also a chef and co-owner at Y.O. Ranch downtown. Four decades later, the family finally opened the chicken place Gene had in mind.
Marco has talked about what it meant to work the same front door his father had worked in 1975. When Street’s opened, at least one server from the old Pea was still on the floor, eight years into her time in that building.
The chicken gets most of the attention. The birds come from Nixon, Texas, and are brined for 24 hours in French herbs before they’re fried, roasted or grilled. The family calls the fried version French fried, a nod to the French technique behind the brine. But the dish that brought this building its fame never left the menu.
When Street’s opened, the family put Gene Street’s original chicken fried steak on the menu, and early diners noticed it came off a griddle instead of out of a deep fryer, the way the old recipe called for. These days the headliner is the Chicken Fried Ribeye, a Certified Angus ribeye breaded and fried, then covered in jalapeño cream gravy and green onions and served with a side and a biscuit. Ribeye is a richer cut than the round steak most kitchens reach for, and it makes for a heavier, beefier plate.
Fill out the plate the way it was always meant to be filled. The Mashed Potatoes are whipped with cream and garlic butter and come with cream gravy. And yes, there are Black Eyed Peas on the side menu, still on the corner where the name started. If the table wants something to share first, the Chicken Fried Bacon is apple-wood smoked bacon fried and drizzled with maple syrup, with both cream gravy and jalapeño gravy for dipping. The Chicken Fried Chicken, a fried boneless breast under cream gravy, is the move for anyone who wants both traditions on one plate.
This is the time of year for it. Texas Chicken Fried Steak Day falls on Oct. 26, and it’s a real holiday, approved by the Texas House of Representatives in 2011. Dallas restaurateur Jeffrey Yarbrough came up with the idea with singer Jimmy Baldwin, and state Rep. Ralph Sheffield, who owned a restaurant in Temple, took the resolution to the House floor. Its text ties the dish to Wiener schnitzel brought over by German immigrants and to the pan-fried steaks Texas cowboys cooked on the trail.
CraveDFW’s chicken fried steak column is counting down to Oct. 26, and this week’s stop is the building where Dallas learned to order one without looking at the menu. Fifty-one years after the first plate went out on Cedar Springs, the Street family is serving it again from the same corner.
Street’s Fine Chicken is at 3857 Cedar Springs Road in Oak Lawn and is open daily for lunch and dinner, with waffles added on Saturday and Sunday. Order online through the restaurant’s website, or call 469-917-7140. For more on the original Pea and the family recipes behind it, Texas Monthly’s visit to the last Black-eyed Pea in Texas is worth your time.
