Springdale. On Wednesday morning, a crowd filled the lobby of the AQ Chicken House, most looking for a souvenir from the legendary restaurant.
Restaurant at 1207 N. Thompson St. in Springdale operated for over 75 years before closing over the weekend. Roy Ritter opened AQ in 1947 to represent the quality of Arkansas.
Auctioneers Looper Auction and Realty spent hours selling items throughout the building, from signs and AQ photos to a carousel, tables, chairs and kitchen equipment.
Framed memorabilia includes scenes from the restaurant’s first decade of operation, news clippings and Queen of the Ozark contestants, and old photographs of celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Randy Travis and Roy Orbison.
A giant rooster statue in a restaurant was sold for $1,100. A glowing neon chicken sign that once stood outside an AQ Fayetteville restaurant has been sold for $500. Many photographs sell for hundreds of dollars.
Josh Whittle returns a 1938 Jones Trucking Company refrigerated trailer. He said that he bought the photo for his grandfather, who started trucking in the area years ago.
Kathy Madding bought a pair of wooden snowshoes against the dining room wall. She said she plans to give them to her son, who now lives in North Dakota.
Steve Purtle said he bought about 25 framed prints at auction. Purtle, owner of Precious Cargo furniture store in Fayetteville, said he would not necessarily resell old photographs. Some photographs, he said, such as that of former Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, whose father worked in Little Rock during Faubus’s tenure, have sentimental value for Purtle.
Joe Moody, who bought several AQ memorabilia, said he moved to Springdale in 1975 and brought his family to the restaurant a few years ago.
Jeanan Washburn, who bought a mirror, a vase and two small wall paintings at the auction, said she doesn’t like it when the restaurant closes either. Washburn, a Springdale native, said she graduated from Springdale High School with Ritter’s daughter.
Extensive development plans suggest that the restaurant will be demolished and replaced with a club car wash on part of the site.
Dick Bradley, a restaurateur since 1998, plans to retire. He said he hopes someone buys the AQ name and brand and reopens the restaurant in the future.
Back when Thompson Avenue was a dirt road, chickens were bred, slaughtered, cleaned, and processed right behind the restaurant. According to Angie Albright, director of the Charlotte Museum of Ozark History, Ritter will eventually become Mayor of Springdale.
According to Kat Robinson’s book “Classic Diners in the Valley of the Ozarks and Arkansas”, the business was sold to TCBY founder Frank Shea, Frank Hickingbotham and Ron Palmer in the early 80s and then sold to Bradley in the late 1990s. Robinson wrote that Bradley sold his Lincoln poultry farm to buy the business.
Over the years, other AQ venues have opened and closed in Fayetteville and Bentonville, including Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
The Hilo Museum of Ozark History holds many AQ-related items, Albright said, and a neon AQ sign will soon be added to one of the restaurants. The Ritter-McDonald log cabin at the Hilo Museum was built in 1854 and has been in the Ritter family for generations, she says.
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