Most businesses on Route 66 began as combinations of gas stations, garages, and lunch counters, but at the Chicken Basket, food became more successful than gasoline sales. In 1939, two local farm women approached gas station and diner owner Irv Kolarik and offered to share their secret fried chicken recipe if he would buy all his chickens from them. He agreed, sales soared, and the gas station became history. After outgrowing his lunch counter, Kolarik built a new Chicken Basket restaurant next door to his original gas station and diner in 1946. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, hungry travelers flocked to the popular restaurant. In 1962, the new Interstate Highway cut off flourishing businesses from the traffic they depended on, but the Chicken Basket survived. After the opening of I-55 brought hard times, Chicago businessman Delbert Dell Rhea bought the Chicken Basket in 1963 and revived business with an advertising campaign aimed at suburbanites and travelers looking for old Route 66.
