For 60 years Tucsonans have flocked to local chain Lucky Wishbone to bring home white boxes filled with orders of crisp chicken and shrimp, buttery garlic toast and lightly breaded steak fingers.
What is said to have been the first fast-food joint in town was a bold move for teacher-turned-restaurateur Derald Fulton, who opened the first location in 1953.
Before Wishbone, local diners ate at sit-down restaurants or cooked their meals at home, but Fulton envisioned an eatery with a simple menu that had counter service and meals to go.
Hundreds stood in line at Wishbone's first location on South Sixth Avenue, near Irvington Road, to wait for it to open its doors on a rainy July evening in 1953.
"People were lined up and the roof on that store was even leaking; it was total chaos," said Clyde Buzzard, 83, one of the original partners in the chain. "We were extremely busy and we had a deal - you buy a dinner, you get a dinner free - so people really responded well beyond our expectations."
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Before Lucky Wishbone, Fulton owned Polar Bar, a restaurant with an extensive menu that had a dining area and car hops.
Fresh off the farm from Illinois in 1950, Buzzard worked for Fulton at Polar Bar.
Buzzard washed dishes for 65 cents an hour at the restaurant, and it beat hauling bales of hay on the farm.
"Restaurant work, to me it was never really work. I was practically on vacation," Buzzard said. "There's nothing hard about washing dishes."
When Fulton decided to move in a different direction and open a fast-food restaurant, he told Fulton and other employees John Kinder and Donald Morris that if the new venture was a success, they would all form a partnership.
The second Wishbone opened near the corner of Broadway and Swan Road in 1954, and five more have opened since.
Buzzard is the only surviving original partner. Co-founder Morris' son, Mark Morris, now runs two of the locations.
The chain has made some tweaks here and there. The chicken is no longer fried in a giant pan, and employees no longer have to fill cups of the tangy shrimp sauce by hand, but otherwise it's the same fried fare that customers have come to expect for decades.
Soldiers overseas and Tucsonans who have moved away frequently request shipments of the the fried goods. And locals often bring their out-of-town guests to Lucky Wishbone.
"We are equipped to do what we do," said Buzzard, who still visits the two locations he owns daily to help with odd jobs. "People don't come here for a salad."
Buzzard credits the staff at the restaurant's locations with helping make the eateries successful. Some employees have worked for the chain for up to 40 years, he said.
"We've been very consistent, mainly thanks to an above-average staff of employees," Buzzard said.
After Kinder died, the Jacobsen family became owners of a few of the Wishbones in 1996, after many years behind the scenes as a supplier for the restaurants through their other business, Arizona Sunland Foods.
Josh Jacobsen, 35, remembers riding along on deliveries to Lucky Wishbone as a kid, and then driving those delivery trucks when he was old enough. Now he runs the Wishbone locations on South Nogales Highway, East 22nd Street and West Silverlake Road.
He enjoys hearing from customers about how eating at Lucky Wishbone has become a tradition for Tucsonans.
"The customers that come in always have stories about their family coming to Lucky Wishbone or growing up and having Lucky Wishbone at yearly family functions - that it just became part of people's family traditions," Jacobsen said.
Tucson native Gilbert Ybarra, 42, is one of those patrons who visits Lucky Wishbone not just for the good eats but also for the nostalgia.
Ybarra remembers that every payday, his dad, who worked in construction, would load up the family in his 1970 Ford Falcon and treat them to dinner at the Wishbone on South Sixth Avenue.
"Some days we'd end up eating in in the car," Ybarra recalled, because there wasn't much seating and it was usually crowded.
Now, Ybarra visits Lucky Wishbone during cruise nights with his Mustang car club, and when he's out and about he picks up food to go to share with his parents.
"It's stood the test of time for me, and it's something that is always a standby; it's the old proverbial comfort food for people, myself included," Ybarra said. "It's always fresh. I've never experienced bad service or bad food from Wishbone."
For Buzzard, the restaurant's 60th anniversary is a "blessing."
"We need to make sure to thank the many people of Tucson, because they're the only reason we're here," he said.
THE WISHBONES
5220 S. Nogales Highway; 4701 E. Broadway; 2545 N. Campbell Ave.; 3979 N. Oracle Road; 990 S. Harrison Road; 2712 E. 22nd St. and 1465 W. Silverlake Road.
Contact reporter Veronica Cruz at vcruz@azstarnet.com or at 573-4224.