SPRINGDALE -- A crowd crammed the foyer of AQ Chicken House on Wednesday morning, most looking for a chance to buy keepsakes from the legendary restaurant.
The eatery at 1207 N. Thompson St. in Springdale had been in business for more than 75 years before it closed last weekend. Roy Ritter opened AQ, which stands for Arkansas Quality, in 1947.
Looper Auction and Realty auctioneers spent hours selling items throughout the building, ranging from AQ signs and photographs to a carousel horse to tables, chairs and kitchen equipment.
Framed memorabilia included scenes from the restaurant's first decade of business, news clippings and old photos of Rodeo of the Ozarks Queen Pageant contestants and celebrities such as Bill Clinton, Randy Travis and Roy Orbison.
The restaurant's large rooster statue sold for $1,100. A lighted neon chicken sign, which once sat outside AQ's Fayetteville restaurant, sold for $500. Many of the photos sold for hundreds of dollars.
Some buyers got small items for friends and family members.
Josh Whittle took home a framed 1938 photograph of a Jones Trucking Lines refrigerated trailer. He said he bought the photo for his grandfather, who started a trucking business in the area years ago.
Rick Shaffer bought the neon chicken sign for a friend from Fort Smith, he said.
Kathy Madding bought a pair of wooden snowshoes off the restaurant walls. She said she plans to give them to her son, who now lives in North Dakota.
A few bought souvenirs for themselves.
Steve Purtle said he bought about 25 framed photographs during the auction. Purtle, who owns the Precious Cargo furniture store in Fayetteville, said he doesn't necessarily plan to resell the old photos. Some, like a picture of former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, have sentimental value for Purtle, whose father worked in Little Rock during the Faubus administration, he said.
"A lot of this is Arkansas history," he said. "You just can't find some of this anywhere."
Joe Moudy, who bought a few pieces of AQ memorabilia, said he moved to Springdale in 1975 and used to bring his family to the restaurant years ago.
Moudy said they'd often order the lemon chicken or chicken over the coals.
"We were regular customers," he said. "It's sad to see it go."
Jeaneane Washburn, who bought a mirror, a vase and two small pieces of wall decor at the auction, said she also hates to see the restaurant close. Washburn, a Springdale native, said she graduated from Springdale High School with Ritter's daughter.
"It was an icon – something that's been here forever and had good food," she said.
Large-scale development plans show the restaurant will be razed and replaced with a Club Car Wash on part of the property.
Dick Bradley, the restaurant's owner since 1998, plans to retire. He said he would love for somebody to buy the AQ name and brand and reopen the restaurant in the future.
When Thompson Avenue was still a dirt road, chickens were raised, killed, cleaned and processed right behind the restaurant. Ritter would eventually become mayor of Springdale, according to Angie Albright, director of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History.
According to Kat Robinson's book "Classic Eateries of the Ozarks and Arkansas River Valley," the business was sold to Frank Hickingbotham -- the founder of TCBY -- and Ron Palmer in the early 1980s, then to Bradley in the late 1990s. Bradley sold his Lincoln chicken farm to buy the business, Robinson writes.
Additional AQ locations opened and closed in Fayetteville and Bentonville over the years, including at Reynolds Razorback Stadium.
The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History has a number of items related to AQ in its collection and will soon add a neon AQ sign from one of the dining rooms, according to Albright. The Ritter-McDonald log cabin on the grounds of the Shiloh Museum, believed to be built in 1854, was owned by several generations of the Ritter family, she said.
Kailee Webb holds her nephew Waylon Dunham, 22 months, near a window during an auction at the former AQ Chicken House restaurant in Springdale on Wednesday. The building will be razed and part of the property will be developed into a car wash. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)Gallery: AQ restaurant auctions off inventory
