Coon Chicken Inn

Coon Chicken Inn was an American chain of four restaurants founded by Maxon Lester Graham and Adelaide Burt in 1925,[1] which prospered until the late 1950s. The restaurant's name uses an ethnic slur, and the trademarks and entrances of the restaurants were designed to look like a smiling blackface caricature of an African-American porter. The smiling capped porter head also appeared on menus, dishes, and promotional items. Due to change in popular culture and the general consideration of being culturally and racially offensive, the chain has since been discontinued.

The first Coon Chicken Inn was opened in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah in 1925. In 1929, another restaurant was opened in then-suburban Lake City, Seattle,[2] and a third was opened in the Hollywood District of Portland, Oregon, in 1931. A fourth location was advertised but never opened in Spokane, Washington. Later, a cabaret, orchestra, and catering were added to the Seattle and Salt Lake restaurants.[3]

In popular culture

An advertisement for the restaurant is shown in the 2004 mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America where it is depicted as being successful in a fictional timeline where the Confederacy defeats and annexes the United States in 1864 with the help of the United Kingdom and France.

A Coon Chicken Inn advertisement is a plot device in Ghost World, a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Terry Zwigoff.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Coon Chicken Inn | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed
  2. ↑ Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project - The Coon Chicken Inn: North Seattle's Beacon of Bigotry
  3. ↑ Ferris State University: Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia
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