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columbuschefs.com Clark’s Dining Room... Tom Clark, Owner Scott Phillips, General Manager Tina Swank, Cook If iron skillet-fried chicken dinners sell for 86 years, why change a good thing? That’s the approach Tom Clark uses for his highly successful Clark’s Dining Room 40 miles east of Columbus on the old National Road. - now old Rt. 40 - in Jacksontown.
Clark once was asked by an approving restaurant reviewer, “Why don’t you open a Clark’s in Columbus?” Clark’s quick comeback, “Why? Columbus comes to me.” His proof comes when he scans his parking lot. On any given day, except Monday when closed, Ohio license tags fill the lot. Franklin County is well represented with fried chicken fans, thus supporting his contention that staying put is good business. Clark’s, one of Ohio’s last restaurants to fry chicken in cast iron skillets, has been doing it the same way founder Clara Clark did when she opened in 1918. Well, there has been one small change. “Grandma fried with lard,” grandson Tom Clark recalls. He continued to use pure lard he bought in 50-pound tubs from a rendering plant until around 1990. Change to vegetable oil came slowly. “I have the kind of customer who does not want us to change a thing,” he says. After a month of using vegetable oil, Clark started asking regulars how they liked his chicken. All thumbs up. He had to eventually confess to making that “slight” change. In 2002 Clark and his iron skillet cooks fried 43,000 chicken dinners. He buys whole birds and cuts on premises. A chicken dinner consists of three pieces, a leg, thigh and breast. “I don’t do wings. Grandma didn’t do wings. I don’t do wings. That’s bar food,” Clark barks. Since there are a few Clark’s customers who will pass on chicken, he offers a ham steak dinner and a ribeye steak. But their number is few. “Chicken is 97 percent of my sales,” he says. The aging cast iron skillet is key to Clark’s Dining Room. The cooks use two sizes: 12 inchers and 15.5 inchers.
Clark is so attuned to this ancient cookware that he takes precaution to keep a stash in reserve. A few years ago he heard a rumor about his favorite skillet foundry going out of business. He rushed to buy a dozen. “They’re in the basement just in case,” he says. One thing about iron skillets, even if a fire strikes again, Clark can rebuild around his stored dozen. He learned such a lesson in 1954 when the restaurant went up in smoke when it was in an aging hotel, once a stagecoach stop. That fire put Clark’s out of business for a year. Clark’s Dining Room 6811 National Rd. (intersection of Rts. 40 and 13) Jacksontown, Ohio 740-323-3874 Lunch and dinner daily except Monday.
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