San Angelo's famous Shakey's Pizza Parlor lives on after closing decades ago

SAN ANGELO — Like an early Christmas present, the Dec. 24, 1966 edition of the Standard-Times announced the city's newest pizza parlor would be opening in a few days.

At that time, there were about 205 Shakey’s restaurants nationwide, including locations in Amarillo, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Waco and another planned for Lubbock, according to the article.

Restaurant franchisee Norman J. Hand Jr. planned to open Shakey's Pizza in San Angelo on Wednesday, Dec. 28 with a grand opening celebration set for Jan. 7.

Hand and his wife had been in the motel business in Hays, Kansas, according to the report, and moved to San Angelo where her parents resided.

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According to Hand, the building was constructed in two divisions, with a family side for groups with children, and another room for adults. The parking lot had room for 80 vehicles, and the capacity of the restaurant was listed as 316.

In April of 1967, the Standard-Times introduced Sam Lewis as the new manager of Shakey’s Pizza, informing readers Lewis moved to San Angelo in 1940, and had worked for more than 10 years at a local bakery, along with his father and six other family members.

Business was brisk at 20 N. Howard St., but within a year, manager Lewis was looking ahead to other promotional opportunities.

A new Shakey's Pizza owner's story

John Dean, now 81, owned the franchise for decades. He now runs a small business in semi-retirement, which he said keeps him moving and gives him something to do everyday.

He grew up in Oklahoma City, and was working in Amarillo when the story begins.

“I was working in another business at the time, traveling a lot, and then winter came and it snowed a bunch and business got real bad, so when I heard they were hiring at Shakey’s part-time, I went down to get a job.

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“I was 29 years old at the time,” Dean said. “They told me I was too old to be working in the kitchen, so they gave me a job bartending, and then the guy I replaced — who was on (a temporary duty assignment) for the military — came back two weeks later, and they didn’t have a job for me anymore.”

Dean was determined to remain employed and got himself the kitchen job, and a conversation with Hand quickly earned him a partnership. 

He said it was his attention to detail when it came to keeping the place spotless that earned him the opportunity.

“I started opening Sundays,” he said. “And I said, ‘You know, folks will be coming in from church — the first place they’re going to go is the restrooms and I want them spotless. I had been down on my hands and knees in there, cleaning those restrooms from top to bottom.

Hand's wife visited the store after church and entered the restroom. 

“I guess it had been in pretty rough shape the last time she went in there … Anyway, she took Mr. Hand in there to show him … He offered me that partnership the next week.”

Dean said Sam Lewis had shown him what to do with the books when he took over management in 1968, but the place tended to get a bit rowdy sometimes, and he felt that would ward-off the better customers.

“We just had too many drunks there at one point,” Dean said. “And I just kept asking myself ‘What can I do?’"

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Then somebody gave Dean the idea of the Birthday Club.

“We started bringing in groups that were celebrating birthdays and that pretty well ran the drunks off for a big part of the day,” he said.

Dean said things were going well, and “Within 32 months, I bought them out.”

During the next 20 years two major renovations and some minor remodeling came to Shakey’s, which was the top restaurant in earnings several years running.

In 1978, Shakey’s was well-established, and Dean was ready to expand the business adding a game room, a family room, and the first cartoon room in the franchise.

All of his innovations were well received, and the business continued to grow in revenue.

In 1981, Dean's efforts were reaping great benefits. That year he was named Shakey’s Franchise Dealer of the Year having placed third in the nation with 200,000 happy customers, and total sales of $1 million.

Ever an honest soul, Dean said many of the great attractions at his restaurant, like the big televisions, were ideas he plucked from others in his travels.

“I never went to another city without checking out their pizza places, and I think I saw something like the TVs at Dave and Buster’s, or some other place in Dallas,” Dean said.

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The big TVs were real crowd pleasers for years, until he had to take them out.

“The lawyers made me get rid of them,” he said.

The secret of Shakey's Rojo potatoes

Rojo potatoes came from a trip to Arizona, Dean said.

A Shakey's franchise in Tucson was selling fried chicken and potatoes in its pizza parlor. 

Dean heard Shakey's was considering sending a cease-and-desist letter, "but ... sales were going through the roof, so they decided not to." 

Dean and Hand made the trek to Tucson and copied the menu.

“He was using a sauce that was kinda red, with ingredients from California to make these potatoes, and they were great, so we got the recipe.”

Dean said elsewhere in the Shakey’s universe, the potatoes are known as “Mojo” potatoes, but he thought “Rojo” was a better name.

“They thought I didn’t want to call them mojo potatoes because of Odessa Permian, but really, I just thought it was a better name because it goes with the color of the potatoes … So anyway, I trademarked the name.”

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Dean said the secret is all about how you cook them.

“They were deep fried under pressure,” he said. “That’s the secret, it makes them cook quickly, and keeps them crispy.”

What caused Shakey's to close? 

Dean talked about the challenges he faced as the years moved on, noting when the San Angelo Shakey’s opened, the franchise was one of the most numerous in the nation.

Pizza Hut got its start a couple of years later.

Dean said as head of the Shakey’s Dealers Association, he complained the company was never aggressive enough in awarding franchises to capitalize their market share, and they were slow to embrace changes that would help franchisees keep pace with newcomers.

“I raised hell with Shakey’s about not selling more franchises out here,” he said. “I told them ‘you’re not protecting me,’ because there was no Shakey’s support helping me then.”

Dean talked about the history of the franchise, beginning with Sherwood “Shakey” Johnson who started the original pizza parlor in California, to the Hunt brothers of Dallas who bought the chain at one point.

“We were way ahead of Pizza Hut,” Dean said. “Shakey’s had over 500 franchises in the 1950s, but we couldn’t grow, because they weren’t selling the franchises.”

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Dean said other innovations that would have sped things along in the kitchen were ignored by the company’s leadership.

“When somebody ordered a sausage pizza, we basically had to go kill a pig,” Dean said. “We had to buy pork loins and grind it, season it overnight, and then we had sausage … There were no shortcuts — there was no shredded cheese, or other ingredients — we had to do it all, and when our competitors went to the frozen stuff, it just left us behind, and made things more and more difficult.”

History of Shakey's employees

Many San Angeloans made their first forays into the working life at Shakey’s, and some keep up with their former teammates, making it a sort-of an exclusive club.

“It was my first job,” San Angelo Police Chief Frank Carter said in a telephone interview. “I was 16."

“I started out working as a bus boy, and I worked my way up to being one of the lead fry-cooks, cooking up Rojos and chicken."

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Carter said the atmosphere at Shakey's was special and behind the scenes management instilled strong work ethics and made the job fun. 

“I learned a lot about business working there — and a lot about work … The way John Dean handled business was smart, and it went all the way down to his managers and staff — he was a hands-on guy," Carter said. 

“When I started back then, it was basically a one-room building with wooden benches and a guy in the back corner playing banjo," Carter said. “John just continued to expand on things with the arcade and games."

Carter said it was the "perfect family environment" and a fun place for kids.

“The thing that stuck out with me was the birthday parties, and you’d invite all your friends and they give you a small pizza, but they gave all the participants that came to your party game tokens, and back in those days, nobody had an arcade even comparable to what Shakey’s had, so everybody wanted to go there," Carter said.

Carter said the restaurant was often filled to capacity during peak hours, but the work seemed fun because everyone was having a good time.

Especially the customers.

“I remember the church rush at 11:30 a.m. on Sundays, and everybody came in and ordered the 10-chicken wing special, so things would get pretty busy,” he said laughing. “Looking back, It’s kind of exciting to know that I was a part of that legacy that’s no longer here in San Angelo.”

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Shakey’s Pizza was listed in the San Angelo Business Directory for the last time in 1998.

The business was operated briefly as the Pizza Factory when franchising fees were no longer affordable, and the doors closed for good not long after.

There is a group dedicated to reminiscing about the restaurant on Facebook called the Shakey's Pizza Parlor Gang, San Angelo.

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