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Fried chicken was the most famous dish on the menu at Knott’s Berry Farm long before the boysenberry became the star of an annual food festival and synonymous with the Buena Park theme park.
Knott’s Berry Farm will celebrate the 90th Anniversary of Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant with a series of fried chicken feasts that stretch from Memorial Day Weekend to New Year’s Day.
“We just stuck with what Cordelia Knott did because that makes us unique,” Knott’s Marketplace director Melissa Laviano said. “We haven’t changed the recipe. None of it’s changed. It’s all the same. It’s the same recipe that we’ve carried on this whole time.”
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant kitchen in the 1940s. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
Cordelia Knott served her now famous country-fried chicken for the first time on June 13, 1934 at the family’s roadside produce market to make ends meet during the Great Depression.
The Knott’s Berry Place market sold fruit and plants next to a small tea room where Cordelia offered sandwiches and hot biscuits along with homemade pies and preserves made from the family farm’s signature boysenberries.
While the pies and jams proved popular, it was the 65-cent chicken dinners served on Cordelia’s wedding china that put Knott’s Berry Place on the map and brought Depression Era diners flocking to the farm in droves.
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant dining room in the 1940s. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
Cordelia’s first fried chicken dinners were served with a salad, side of rhubarb, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits and a slice of berry pie.
As word spread, customers were soon waiting up to three hours in line to get a plate.
Cordelia’s tea room quickly grew from 20 seats to 40 and then 70 before expanding to a full-fledged restaurant with room for 350 people.
But the lines didn’t get any shorter. The crowds kept coming.
The queue for Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
Those long lines convinced Walter Knott to build novelties and amusements to entertain the crowds while they waited for his wife’s fried chicken.
Walter built a rock garden with a waterfall and then a replica of George Washington’s fireplace from Mount Vernon. Then he started thinking bigger.
Construction began in 1940 on what would become Calico Ghost Town — which still serves as the heart of Knott’s Berry Farm today.
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant kitchen in the 1940s. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
Walter bought pieces of old Wild West buildings and used them to build a sheriff’s office, barbershop and hotel. Actors were hired to populate the faux Western town and amuse the diners.
Soon people were coming as much for Walter’s ghost town as Cordelia’s fried chicken. A loudspeaker system was installed to call diners back to the restaurant when it was time for their reservation.
In the 1950s, the Calico Saloon, Ghost Town & Calico Railroad and Bird Cage Theatre were added to entertain the growing restaurant crowds. In the 1960s, the first true theme park attractions were introduced with the Calico Mine Ride and Timber Mountain Log Ride.
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant kitchen in the 1940s. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
By 1968, Knott’s Berry Farm was enclosed and the new theme park began charging a $1 entrance fee. Today, what began as a roadside berry stand and chicken dinner restaurant attracts 3.9 million visitors a year to one of the nation’s largest theme parks with more than 40 rides and shows.
In the coming months, Knott’s is poised to become the flagship park in an $8 billion merger that would combine Cedar Fair and Six Flags into a North American amusement park juggernaut.
And to think it all started with a 65-cent fried chicken dinner dreamed up by Cordelia Knott as a way to make ends meet during the Great Depression.
Today, Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant serves 2,500 fried chickens on a busy weekend and up to 2 million pounds of chicken per year. The eatery bills itself as the world’s largest, full service, single location chicken restaurant with seating for nearly 900 people.
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant pie machine in the 1940s. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
“We have guests that have been coming for 40 or 50 years,” Laviano said during an interview at the restaurant. “I love when they say, ‘It tastes like I remember when I came with my great grandma or when my parents brought me here.’ Now they’re bringing the next generation of their family and they want that same taste. You might not remember what the place looked like, but you remember how that chicken tasted or made you feel.”
Obviously, chicken dinners don’t cost 65 cents anymore.
Today, Mrs. Knott’s chicken dinner runs $20 at lunch for two pieces with mashed potatoes and gravy, biscuits and a side that still includes a rhubarb option. Dinner comes with four pieces of chicken and a slice of pie for $26.50.
Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant dining room. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives)
After 90 years, there’s more than just fried chicken on the menu. Mrs. Knott’s offers other burgers, pasta, fish, BBQ pork and steak — but 90% of the customers still order chicken.
You can get your chicken fried, roasted, with waffles or dumplings, as tenders, wings or on a slider, in a pot pie and even as a plant-based chik’n.
“You’ve got to stay up with the trends and the fads if you still want guests to come in and come back,” Laviano said.
Cordelia Knott in the Mrs. Knott’s Chicken Dinner Restaurant kitchen. (Courtesy of Orange County Archives) Courtesy of Orange County Archives
The long lines of the past were replaced by a reservation system in 2016 with a virtual queue that can stretch to two hours on busy weekends.
“Guests come in and they’re like, ‘Where’s the line?’” Laviano said. “I’m like, ‘Well, it’s virtual now.’ We’ll put you on our waitlist and we’ll reach out to you via text.”
The restaurant has a celebrity following that includes Nicolas Cage, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Mel Gibson and Tiffany Haddish.
No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani has been coming to Mrs. Knott’s restaurant for years — and now brings husband Blake Shelton along for the feast.
In the 1990s, the park experimented with Mrs. Knott’s Restaurant and Bakery locations in Irvine, Rancho Cucamonga and Moreno Valley — but they’re all closed now.
There used to be a few spots throughout the theme park where you could grab fried chicken, but now you’ve got to head over to CDR if you want to satisfy the urge.
Throughout the rest of 2024, the restaurant just outside the theme park front gates will offer a Berry Family Breakfast during the summer, a Midnight Breakfast Buffet during Knott’s Scary Farm, Cordelia’s Tea Party during the Thanksgiving season and Santa’s Breakfast during Knott’s Merry Farm.
