The Tasty Chick Sign Lives!

The old Tasty Chick sign. 

A landmark?

A piece of Pop Culture art?

Obnoxious advertising?

It doesn't matter to Board of Education member Paul Stansel. He's saving it.  

The old restaurant at 243 Regan Rd., known for its fried chicken and seafood, has been sitting vacant for years, the colorful sign a shell of its former self. Debbie and Walter Kaczmarczyk bought it about five years ago because of its frontage and the fact that the back lot abuts their business,.

Jessica Foster, the former owner and director of Dance Nation, is remodeling the place and opening a new venture, .

But what about the sign? It had been sitting in the building and workers have been renovating around it. Debbie Kaczmarczyk said she would sell it to the right buyer and in stepped Stansel.

OK ... stepped is anunderstatement. He jumped at the opportunity.

"It's a piece of Vernon history and something like that needs to be saved," Stansel said. 

The plastic sign was taken off the stanchion when the business closed and is in four pieces, leaning against a pole near where the counter used to be. 

The old neon chicken that was featured in Tasty Chick's main window, running away as "seafood" lit up underneath it, is also in there, but nothing lights up anymore.

Kaczmarczyk said someone mentioned fleetingly that he was interested in the sign shortly after she and Walter bought the building, but she said on Wednesday that she had lost contact with the potential buyer. 

When the dance studio leased the space, a home had to be found for the sign. Stansel asked first and she gave him right of first refusal. Stansel was asking about the sign even before he knew it was around. 

"Something has to be done with it," he said on Monday. "Many of us grew up with that sign."

When he was notified that it was available on Wednesday, Stansel visited Kaczmarczyk  and the two worked out a deal. Stansel is not publicly divulging how much he paid for the sign, but said his wife would frown more at the actual purchase than the price. 

"The Tasty Chick sign has to be saved. It's part of Vernon," he said.

But what to do with it? The city of Las Vegas has been underwriting a program to take its old hotel signs out of a boneyard and turn them into street art along the boulevard Downtown and it has become widely popular. Would it work in Vernon?

When asked hypothetically if the Tasty Chick sign could be placed somewhere in town, Mayor Jason McCoy at first gave his inquisitor a strange look.

But then admitted it would be a conversation piece. 

"It's been a landmark in Vernon for as long as I can remember," he said. "So I would like to be able to keep it that way."

Stansel has an idea that would not require a zoning variance. 

Make it into a parade float. 

"Why not? I have the garage space and it can be converted," he said. "I can put a frame on it and mount it on a trailer. It's the best way to preserve it and show it off."

Stansel did not say if he would be throwing chicken wings from it during the annual July in the Sky celebration next summer or at the Homecoming football game at Rockville High School.

But the chicken was his favorite item on the menu.

"I was a chicken guy … and theirs was nice and greasy," he said. 

Now Stansel is THE Tasty Chick guy.

Or a real historian. 

Stay tuned for a parade near you.