Speck's chicken is the 'Broast' of Collegeville

The second I spotted a mess of curly blond hair pop up from nowhere like a meerkat that's heard a clatter, I knew my new friend was up to something.

Rising above the ketchup-and-mustard-colored counter at the Collegeville chicken shack Speck's, the lookie-loo revealed herself: a toddler wearing a big, goofy grin. Without breaking eye contact, she came around to my side, grabbed the empty white vinyl stool next to me, and sent it spinning furiously on its stand, the motion producing a satisfying whirrrrr that bounced around the spotless dining room like a Super Ball.

The stool-spinner's mother, waiting for her takeout order at the register, smiled. "You're naughty," she said, rolling her eyes with the type of loving resignation moms reserve for their kids. "But, hey, I used to do the same thing when I was a little girl."

In today's combative restaurant economy, there just aren't many establishments left with the longevity to accommodate multigenerational mischief. Speck's is one of them. Serving for more than 60 years, they do certain things a certain way, and loyalists trust that will never change. It's the type of reliable family business that ends up extending your family.

Stanley Landis, originally from Skippack, is the son of a butcher, and early in his career he gravitated toward the profession, albeit in mobile format: Driving a refrigerated truck, he sold meat door to door throughout the 1940s. By 1953, he wanted something more permanent, so he went all-in on his own restaurant in Limerick. He called it Speck's, his longtime nickname.

Landis' son Randy, who has run Speck's outright since its namesake retired in 2000, doesn't know where his dad picked up the moniker or what it means, aside from its being Pennsylvania Dutch. But he literally grew up in Speck's shadow. "We lived within 40 feet of the building," he said.

By 1965, Speck's was ready to expand, so the founder took over its current Collegeville digs, a spick-and-span single-level property with soft red shingles at the corner of Ridge and Germantown Pikes. More than a half-century later, it's the only Speck's in operation, and the design still smacks of a bygone time - vintage-pattern tabletops, bright plastic bucket seats, retro globe lights casting gentle yellow-and-orange light over dinner.

The menu - burgers, fries, sandwiches, and sides - was popular, but the Landis clan felt they could do better. "At the time, the business was doing OK, but it wasn't doing well enough," said Randy. So his dad "went with the chicken and that was the right move."

A run-of-the-mill bird wasn't going to cut it. In the early 1970s, Speck decided to buy into Broaster, a Wisconsin company that was founded around the same time he first got his feet wet.

It's a unique model by 2016 standards: Unlike a typical franchise-franchisee relationship, in which an individual invests in a larger brand and operates with the name in exchange for financial considerations, Broaster - not a play on "braised" or "broiled" or "roasted," despite how it sounds - markets a method. Buy into Broaster and you get the right to use the brand name and access to the company's proprietary chicken marinade recipes, plus actual equipment.

Speck's Broaster rig is a beast, tricked out with five high-pressure fryers that can take something like 60 pounds of pollo from raw to perfect in 10 minutes if operating at capacity.

There are other locals who offer Broasted chicken - one nearby competitor is the Hilltop Drive-In in Pottstown - but it became a signature for Speck's. The interplay of heat and pressure produces an intoxicatingly crispy product that isn't heavy or greasy. And it travels: Sit in for a few minutes and you'll start seeing people park, run in looking hungry and run out toting takeout boxes featuring Broaster's mascot, a jaunty chicken in a stovepipe hat.

"What makes it different? It's better than the rest of them," said Randy matter-of-factly.

Chat up Speck's regulars, though, and it becomes clear chicken is only part of the draw. "It's the best chicken in the world. But make sure you try the coleslaw, too," Frank Panfile informed me with zero prompting as we waited together in line. A Marine Corps veteran who now works for the U.S. Postal Service, he's been coming to Speck's since he was 5. His daughter is one of dozens of young people, mostly local high school students, who work the counter and the line.

One of those students, Methacton junior Abbey Allen, has been at Speck's for about two years. Her two college-age siblings and her mother have worked there, too. On one recent Saturday afternoon, she served her grandparents Bill and Beth Allen - like Panfile, they're quick to drop best-in-the-world plaudits - who came in for an early dinner. They've been doing so for 50 years. Other families - the Flynns, the Frys, the Rosens, the Youngs - have had generations work at Speck's, too.

"I might as well have been born here," said Abbey.

Randy Landis, along with his wife, Anita; sister Lori Brimmer; and manager Dawn Flynn, can recognize most of the faces who come through the door. But not all of them. "Every week, people come in who have never been here before," Randy said, describing me exactly.

I've already been back.

Drew Lazor has been writing about the local food scene since 2005. His twice-monthly column focuses on unexpected people doing unexpected things in Philadelphia food. If you come across a chef, restaurant, dish or food-related topic that bears investigation, contact him at andrewlazor@gmail.com or on Twitter @drewlazor.