Who Needs a Menu?
I’m trying to remember the last time I ate in a restaurant that didn’t have any menus. Maybe never. It’s very strange to sit down at a table and just hope that whatever comes out of the kitchen will be something you like. But that’s how things work at one of my favorite new places, Galvin’s Dinnerhouse (6802 South 22nd Street) in St. Joseph, Missouri. It’s a fried-chicken restaurant and, even more strange, it’s a secret even to some people who live in St. Joseph!
For years, I’ve been hearing about Galvin’s from a friend of mine in Kansas City, Fred Biehl, who grew up in St. Jo and has longtime memories of the restaurant. And why wouldn’t he? It’s been around forever — since 1940, anyway. That’s when Roy and Dottie Galvin turned an old Phillips 66 gas station into a tiny counter operation that served chicken-in-a-basket lunches and dinners to the locals and to hungry bus passengers who took the old route from St. Joseph to Kansas City.
In those days, the Galvins didn’t just serve fried chicken, french fries and cole slaw to customers. They raised the chickens in the back of the old service station (where they lived in two small rooms) and grew their own produce. In the early 1950s, FDA regulations forced them to stop serving the freshly slaughtered chickens, but the Galvins kept frying up birds for regulars, such as Ross Wolfing, who bought the place in 1970 and turned the chicken joint into a full-service dining room. Bill Grace, who started working at Galvin’s as a teenage dishwasher in 1972, took over in 1989.
Last week I sat down in the tastefully appointed back dining room with two friends and had one of the best meals of my life, even without many choices. First a cup of beef noodle soup, then a choice of salad — I had a frozen marshmallow concoction, Bob had a nice house salad, and Patrick had a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. Then came a platter of modestly sized but juicy pieces of fried chicken, real mashed potatoes with cream gravy, freshly cooked corn and crisp green beans.
The only other choice we could make involved one of the homemade desserts: a rich, baked flan; a fragrant, hot apple cobbler; a square of “baked fudge” topped with vanilla ice cream. We ordered one each and agreed they were extraordinary. Dinner for three was $46. It’s a tiny place, so reservations are required (1-816-238-0463). And yes, it’s a trip out of town, but you won’t squawk about it.
