7. AQ Chicken

Welcome to AQ Chicken where AQ is "Arkansas Quality." We excel at growing chickens here. We're good at eating them, too. This is Fayetteville's AQ Chicken restaurant. When Victoriana meets Highway 71 Business this is what you get.



AQ Chicken has a long record of servin' folks down home cookin'. It's not a 5-star restaurant by any means but it's a restaurant you should check out at least once in your life.



Here is Bill in the lobby. Bill's been on a diet since the first of the year. Here he is very happy because he knows that he will break his diet with this evening's dinner.



OK, I tried to be subtle in taking this picture of the inside of the restaurant.



I wanted to show you how you can mix acoustical tiles, embossed tin plates, lattice-work, and clapboards to recreate Grant Wood's American Gothic in a restaurant.



This is a "homey" restaurant. Condiments include ketchup, honey, and strawberry preserves.



I, too, have been on a diet. The pants I wore in Rome are loose...well, until now. Here's my AQ "raked-over-the-coals" chicken, seasoned green beans, cinnamon apples, and a dinner roll. Our appetizers consisted of a similar dinner roll. This makes my second.



Bill substituted corn on the cob and mashed potatoes and gravy as his two sides. I would have taken a picture but he had inhaled the food before I was able to get my camera out. As you can tell, this is not diet food. It's fried, it's salted, it arrives at the table in abundant quantities. Americans generally eat like this and it explains why so many of us are overweight.



A good restaurant is one that hands out crayons with the menus. I love crayons and sometimes think that's why I pursued a degree in Interior Design instead of law.



This is a family-friendly restaurant. They had this same treasure chest for kids when our kids were little. Our kids are now 23 and 20. I guess that explains why generations of Arkansans have fond memories of AQ Chicken.

P.S. Americans differ from Italians in one significant way when it comes to dining in restaurants. Americans often carry uneaten food home with them in a "doggy bag." I didn't eat all of the food on my plate. Instead, I brought home one chicken thigh, a roll, and half the apples. I am going to have a delicious lunch.