A 4 page die cut Curb Service menu in the shape of a Pig. From the Pig Stands Inc of Fort Worth Texas. America's Motor Lunch. With No. 11 on North Main Street, No. 12 on Park Place and No. 13 on W 7th Street in Fort Worth. Measures about 4 3/4" x 8 " when closed. In very fine condition. Circa late 1940's 
Featuring the Original Barbecued Pig Sandwich and The Piggiebuger. Served Rochester Root Beer. 
Due to the size limitations of my scanner, the entire menu may not show in some of the scans.  

Brisket may dominate barbecue menus in Texas today, but nearly a century ago, a Dallas institution built its mighty restaurant empire on a simple Tennessee-style barbecued-pork sandwich: the “Pig Sandwich.” Perhaps some already know that I’m referring to the signature item served at the Pig Stand, a Dallas-based chain that formed in the twenties and quickly grew into a nationwide franchise.

And when I say quickly, that’s no exaggeration. According to an advertisement from 1924— when the Pig Stands Co. was only 30 months old—50,000 sandwiches were sold each week from just the ten Dallas locations (there were Pig Stands in six other states by then too). That’s a mighty impressive number for such a young company.

The Pig Stand’s history captured my attention long ago, mostly because of its much-ballyhooed legacy as the first drive-in. This sounded like a big claim to stake, and I wanted to know what happened to the restaurant chain that could not only sell 50,000 sandwiches a week in Dallas when the city only had about 250,000 residents but also invented the concept of the drive-in. After some digging, I found that there was no significant event that led to the eventual shuttering of the last Pig Stands in 2006. In fact, I discovered, despite rapid expansion and the public’s cultish obsession with the place, the franchise went quietly into the night, not with a squeal, but rather with a prolonged whimper that dragged out over decades.

Even though this isn’t an uncommon problem with restaurants, the history of the Pig Stand’s fast-rising and slow-falling star was enthralling nonetheless. It started in 1921* when Jesse G. Kirby opened the first Pig Stand on the southwest corner of Fort Worth Pike Road and Chalk Hill Road. This was beyond the outskirts of town back then, and, following the credo of “location, location, location,” Kirby opened his second Pig Stand near the center of town—Zang and Bishop, now known as Colorado Boulevard, to be exact. By September of 1923 he had sold the original location and, with his business partner Dr. Reuben Jackson, set sights on expansion in Dallas—and beyond.

Credit is often given to Kirby for creating the first drive-in restaurant. And rightly so, if, for anything, the fact that the concept of carhops was first introduced at the original Pig Stand. There are plenty of other firsts attributed to them too: the first onion ring, the first chicken-fried steak sandwich, Texas toast, neon lights. Some of those claims might be hard to prove, but they all serve as anecdotal evidence of Kirby and Jackson’s innovativeness.

But it’s a different kind of pioneering they should get credit for but often don’t: Kirby and Jackson may have been the first people to invent the restaurant chain as we know it today. Howard Johnson restaurants are generally attributed with developing the concept of franchise restaurants. But consider this. The second Howard Johnson was a franchise location when it opened in 1932; by that time there were already more a hundred Pig Stands, and the company had been offering franchises to hopeful entrepreneurs since 1925. As Kirby once cleverly told someone of opening a franchise, “Give a little pig a chance, and it will make a hog of itself.”

In 1926, just a few short years after the Pig Stand started, the company lost its founder. Kirby became ill on a train ride to St. Louis in April and died suddenly from pneumonia. He left a wife, Shirley, and two sons, both of whom would go on to become restaurateurs.

After Kirby’s death, Shirley continued operating the Pig Stand company with his partner, Jackson. Under their guidance, the brand got so popular that copycats began to appear. The company took out an ad in 1927 ad that read “Imitation Pig Stands are springing up like mushrooms all over Dallas.” They would unsuccessfully sue one of them, the Dixiepig Stand, whose specialty was a “Dixiepig Sandwich.” (Another Dixie Pig exists in Abilene, Texas. They have a “Pig Sandwich” on the menu, but with roasted pork and barbecue sauce, it’s not one that Jesse Kirby would recognize. It’s missing the “sour relish which gives zest to the Pig Sandwich.”)