Could Harold's Chicken No. 55 Taste Even Better From The Truck?

CHICAGO — Coronavirus and a reportedly greedy landlord killed the city's best Harold's Chicken Shack — No. 55 on 87th Street, that is — but the savory scent of fried bird soaked in mild sauce still wafts over the Chatham parking lot it once called home.

Nestled alongside the curb at 87th and Lafayette, Percy Billings Jr. manned the deep friers as cashier Jessica Jarmon worked the window at Harold's Chicken food truck as a line of regulars lined up for lunch Monday.

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"We're not as busy as we were at the store, I think, because most of our customers don't know we're out here on the truck," Jarmon said.

Harold's Chicken Shack No. 55 closed in August when owner Percy Billings Sr. moved the operation out of the strip mall that had been home to his franchised chicken shack — made famous when Chance the Rapper brought Katie Couric there for the wings and a national TV interview — since 1992.

Billings Sr. told the Tribune that his landlord wanted $10,000-a-month for rent (a $3,000 monthly increase) "plus a percentage" and a five-year lease.

Since then, one of the Harold's No. 55 food trucks — typically deployed in Streeterville and the Loop — has returned to a street parking spot adjacent to its former location, nestled between Starbucks, Home Depot and Dollar Tree, to serve their most faithful South Side customers.

On Monday, the truck was packed with 40 years of Harold's Chicken-slinging experience. After taking my order, Jarmon told me she's been working at Harold's No. 55 since she was 19, a decade ago.

"And I've been doing this since before she was born," Billings Jr. chimed in food truck's galley. "Thirty years and still going strong."

When I asked why folks might not want to sleep on getting their chicken from a truck instead of a "Shack", Jarmon told it to me straight.

"We've got a better cook. A better cashier," she said. "You tell 'em, everything tastes better on the truck. And we're fast. Faster than fast food. We won't have you waiting 20 minutes like you're at Red Lobster."

In a few minutes, Jarmon served up my order of perfectly fried chicken covered with mild sauce-slathered fries. The lady wasn't fibbing.

I swear, Harold's No. 55 does taste better on a truck. And still requires extra napkins.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series, "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docu-series on CNN, and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, "16 Shots.
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