White Fence Farm celebrates a 60-year family tradition

ROMEOVILLE – Laura Hastert, granddaughter of White Fence Farm founders Robert “Bob” Hastert Sr. and his wife Doris Hastert, recalled how she earned spending cash at age 12 by picking up garbage from the restaurant parking lot with her best friend.

“I pulled a trash can with me and got paid $5,” said Hastert, who over her 37 years of experience with White Fence has worked as a waitress, hostess and cashier, as well as in marketing and advertising, purchasing and as manager. "I was very proud of that first job.”

Sixty years later, Hastert is still cooking chicken the way her grandparents cooked it – same-day pressure cooking and flash fried in soybean oil to crisp the outside – and treating employees the way they’ve always been treated – as family.

White Fence Farm closes only in January for deep cleaning and repairs, and has just one franchise in Denver.

Indeed, the business feels like family. Larry Bigger, 40 years and now general manager, started as a busboy. Hostess Shirley Bigger started as a waitress 30 years ago and met her husband on the job. All three of their children have also worked at the restaurant.

Judy Lapice, 31 years, is a former waitress and current front of the house manager. Two of Lapice's children, Teri Rice and Randy Dice, each manage a White Fence Farm carryout location: Joliet and Downers Grove. Kim Schwartz, 20 years, manages the Romeoville carryout; Lou DeLaVega, 30-plus years, manages the Riverside carryout. Allen Corkern manages the Plainfield carryout

Mary Callaghan, 42 years, is a training hostess. Chuck Ker, 36 years, is the day and receiving manager. His wife, Roxanne, also works at White Fence Farm, as have all three of their children. Hugh Moarn, 40 years, is the kitchen manager. Diane Kelly, 34 years, is still waitressing. Bev Svobda, 30-plus years, works multiple jobs: payroll, human resources and office and purchasing.

Even Hastert herself, who has a degree in hotel restaurant management from the University of Denver, and formerly worked at Taco Bell for Pepsi Co. and then Rubio's restaurants in San Diego, eventually returned to help run White Fence Farm.

And yes, all three of Hastert's children also work at the restaurant.

“June Hoffer, our office manager, just passed away a year ago in April. She was here the longest,” Hastert said. “She did all the purchasing and had done the purchasing and the books with Bob at Harmony House. He brought her over here after he bought White Fence Farm in 1953. Not many places have this history and tradition."

White Fence Farm was not Bob and Doris' first restaurant. They had founded another, Harmony House in Aurora, and were already cooking what would one day be their famous chicken when they stumbled upon a farmhouse on Route 66.

The original owner of what was a 450-acre farm – even then-named White Fence Farm – was multibillionaire, Sylvester Peabody, who housed coal miners on the property, Hastert said. When Bob discovered 12 of its original acres, the site featured a restaurant “known for its hamburgers, 1920 cars parked out front and a shuffleboard outside.”

Hastert said Bob had thought, “I’m gonna buy that and put my restaurant there. It’s a nice inviting atmosphere. People will want to drive to the country for a good meal with good service and friendly people and they can play shuffleboard while they’re waiting.”

Bob, Hastert said, made an offer, bought the house, brought his Harmony House chicken with him and kept his menu simple. The main entrees have always been chicken, shrimp, fish (Icelandic cod, broiled or fried) and steak, Hastert said. Bob always resisted trends, despite urgings from others.

“He used to say, ‘You’ll be the dog chasing its tail’ because fads always change,” Hastert said.

Chicken comes fresh each day to White Fence Farm ("Weighing between 2.3 to 2.6 pounds," Hastert said), from two suppliers to keep prices competitive. Employees cut and quarter the chicken to control weight and “because it’s the way grandpa did it years ago.”

A machine dusts the chicken with pastry flour – no egg, no milk and very little salt, Hastert said. The chicken is pressure cooked for 12 minutes, loaded onto carts and then wheeled into a cool-down room to wait for dinner orders and flash frying.

The powdered sugar-dusted corn fritters are real corn fritters, not hush puppies. Hastert additions include two “boil in the bag” soups – chicken noodle and cream of broccoli and cheese – gourmet macaroni and cheese, and a dinner salad that's more than the wedge of iceberg lettuce of former years.

"Bob would just die," Hastert said.

White Fence Farms by the numbers:

• $1.95 - cost complete chicken dinner in 1954. Cost in 2014 is $15

• 2.3 to 2.6 pounds – weight of all chickens

• Five carryout locations

• 12-acre restaurant

• 12 dining rooms seating 1,100 people (2014)

• More than 120 employees

• 450 guest capacity (1954)

• 567 parking spaces

• 4,000 – number of chicken dinners served on Mother’s Day serves to 6,000 people

• 5,000 to 10,000 — number of patrons that can be served weekly

From www.whitefencefarm.com