Walt's Flavor Crisp turns 30 Founder soul food of landmark restaurant going strong at 80 By ERIC RUTH • The News Journal • April 29, 2008
WILMINGTON -- Barbara Bullock will tell you all about the good life she's had cooking up smoky collard greens and spicy rice for the past three decades at Walt's Flavor Crisp. Just don't ask her for any recipes. "I can't give you my secret," the 63-year-old living legend politely told a reporter. Some things will just have to remain a quiet part of the legend at this luscious city soul food restaurant, which celebrated its 30th year Monday with a half-price special and a fond look back at what its unparalleled pressure-fried chicken has meant to legions of hungry Delawareans. There are the proud achievements -- like the many chicken-crazed customers who routinely drive long distances to Vandever Avenue for a box of Walt's peppery, lightly battered specialty. There are the startling revelations -- like how founder Harry Sheppard, now age 80 and still minding the shop, came up with the chicken recipe by adapting his grandmom Anna Brown's technique for cooking jackrabbit. There are the unfulfilled dreams -- Sheppard always dreamed that Walt's would reach franchised success, an aspiration fulfilled for now only by the Walt's offshoot on Lincoln Street . "Our major problem on expansion is competent help," he said. "You can open 50 stores, but if you don't have anybody to run 'em, you got problems." So when Walt's gets hold of a good employee, they like to hang on. To Bullock, the place and the people have become like part of her family, and in turn, the North Carolina native has given the city a taste of the South. Apparently, it's such a tasty taste of the South that even Southerners clamor for it. "We have several people that actually come from Atlanta , people that used to live in Delaware ," said Symanthia Lynch, one of Sheppard's partners in the business. "They'll call us and say, 'We're headed up that way.' " Widely regarded as the best fried chicken north of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, Walt's has flourished through the years in part from a broadening notoriety outside of its urban neighborhood. In recent years, even as nearby streets became the haunt of open-air drug dealing, suburbanites would put aside their worries and stroll up the gritty city street for a box of Walt's chicken. "I tell everybody as long as you don't pat nobody on the butt and you mind your own business, people are people," Sheppard said of the unsavory reputation his neighborhood has gotten. "It's a perception more than the reality." Another misperception is that Walt's has always been a chicken specialist. "Actually, it all happened when we went into the ice cream business," he said. "We needed another item because ice cream's not [in demand for] 12 months, so we chose chicken." When pushed for a few secrets, Sheppard was cagey, but cool. The pressure fryers -- also known as Broasters -- are just part of the reason his birds are so moist, he said. "The chicken is marinated before it is cooked. We use Oriental breading and a marination, then we cook it. The Oriental-style breading is thin, not like Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips." What about the seasoning? "Yeah, we add a little bit," he said. Sheppard is more forthcoming about why his prices have stayed so low over the years. "My motto was, if I don't wanna eat it, I don't sell it," he said. "We keep it affordable for the people in the neighborhood." Considering that he found his true calling after so long and so many jobs -- "I sold life insurance, cars, aluminum waterless cookware, storm windows and doors" -- Sheppard doesn't seem eager to give up the chicken business yet. "I still work every day," he said. "I'm the delivery boy. They got me doing it all, scrubbing the floors, cleaning the toilets. Just don't get in anybody's way." Contact Eric Ruth at 324-2428 or eruth@delawareonline.com. | 