Shakey's Pizza Parlor advertisement from UTC book cover. Click to enlarge.
It was September 21, 1973 - approximately 10:30 p.m. Earlier that evening, the Hixson High Wildcats had defeated the Tyner High Rams in football by a score of 28 to 6. I had really taken a beating in that game, and needed rejuvenation. The practices leading up to the game had been marathons. All of that marching and playing those high notes on my trombone had been responsible for how I felt. I wanted a pizza, and knew where to go.
Entering the Shakey’s at 4524 Hixson Pike, I heard the familiar sounds of the restaurant’s player piano. The pianist for our high school jazz band worked at Shakey’s, and knew how to get that ragtime sound from the ivories. The piano was a key part of the experience of going to Shakey’s.
Integrating piano with pizza dates to 1954, when the first Shakey’s Pizza Parlor opened in Sacramento, California. Sherwood “Shakey” Johnson and Ed Plummer were the founders. Mr. Johnson was an accomplished musician, and entertained customers with his ragtime renditions on the restaurant’s piano.
Shakey’s came to Chattanooga around 1967, according to the city directory. The first restaurant was located at 5911 Brainerd Road near South Chickamauga Creek. A second pizza parlor opened in 1970 in Hixson. By then, the Shakey’s, Pizza Hut, and Godfather’s chains were all slicing up the local market for pizza. Less than a decade earlier, “pizza pies” were served only at a few local family-owned restaurants.
A November 21, 1975 Chattanooga Times supplement included an article on Shakey’s. The restaurant was reported to feature twenty-one different kinds of “the world’s greatest pizza.” The description of the restaurant’s interior was as I remembered it from my 1973 visit – a “mixture of German and English architecture…with long wooden benches and tables.”
In addition to the player piano, Shakey’s had a juke box and coin-operated games. Pizza was quite a bit cheaper in 1975 than today, ranging from $3.50 to $5.80. With reasonable prices, musical entertainment, and good food and beverages, Shakey’s was a popular place, especially after Friday night football games.
As I recall, the pizza helped me to recover from the game. I may have even had an extra slice to prepare for the next week of punishing practices leading up to the game with Central High. You never knew what to expect when going up against another school’s band. They might try to play “The Horse” just when you were starting to play “Fever.”
September 21, 1973 was significant from another musical perspective. This was the day after entertainer Jim Croce was killed in an airplane crash following his final concert. Appropriately, the Shakey’s pianist was playing Croce tunes that evening. You haven’t heard “Big, Bad Leroy Brown” until you’ve heard it on a big player piano.
Though it seems like that they were here longer, the Shakey's of Hixson closed in 1979 and Brainerd bid adieu in 1980. I believe that the Brainerd building was subsequently demolished, while the one in Hixson today houses NHC Home Care.
According to their Web site (www.shakeys.com), Shakey’s is still in existence in other cities. The location closest to Chattanooga is in Warner Robins, Georgia.
If you have memories of Shakey’s, please send me an e-mail at jolleyh@bellsouth.net.