Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken
Four Piece + a Breast with Beans, Slaw, Bread
Pecan Pie
Chess Pie
Banana Pudding
Now available in a few US Cities, with more to come, the story of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken began in Mason Tennessee, and located a bit off the beaten path between Nashville and Memphis along Hwy 70 a pilgrimage to the place where it all started is perhaps not on everyone’s agenda, yet for those willing to make the thirty minute diversion a rewarding experience is available, the small hall steeped in as much history as it is in oil and spices.
Officially built and opened in 1973 by Gus’s father, a carpenter named Napoleon who handed a recipe much older than the space down to his son, the small house containing an open kitchen and dining area with décor that seems unchanged since long before Gus’s 2007 passing is a homey sort of place and with nothing but locals present as three women cooked while a fourth provided charming service the order essentially wrote itself – one half a bird with sides and two desserts, a complimentary third as an added bonus to take on the road.
Fried to order, but merely a fifteen minute wait compared to the hour-long lines at the famous Memphis location, it was largely listening to locals kibitz with one another that we waited and no sooner had we finished our beverages that refills were offered along with the object of our desire, each bite of the juicy bird rife with seasoning and spice without being “hot” and the skin literally shattering to tooth, any bits that fell off placed on a piece of white bread with a dash of hot sauce making a sandwich every bit as delicious as it was debaucherous.
Personally finding the slaw to be a bit too one-note and creamy, but impressed by baked beans with a nice nose of smoke, it was onward to desserts that the meal progressed and with each pie emerging from the oven no more than a half hour prior to service the creamy custard of the Chess was just set while the warm Pecan slice was almost entirely lacking in ‘filler,’ both texture and flavor benefitting tremendously with a buttery nuttiness as opposed to overt sweetness – a descriptor no one would rightfully apply to a jar of pudding that featured bananas at their peak of ripeness in a creamy housemade base with whipped cream and ‘Nilla wafers not for lack.
http://gusfriedchicken.com/mason-tennessee-location/