Last updated: September 20, 2021

In the Weeds

I’m ashamed to admit it, but there was a time in my early teens when all I wanted to eat was chicken tenders. Whether we were eating out at the Fuddruckers on Highway 51,or our local Showmars on Providence Road, my go-to order was golden-brown, crispy-fried, elongated hunks of chicken with honey mustard or barbecue sauce for dipping. I’ve fortunately come a long way since then, and any kid has to be forgiven the culinary sins of their youth. Still, it’s hard to deny the power of this fast food staple.

So when I heard about a little place in Derita that seemed to be serving up some of the best chicken tenders in the city,  I had to give it a try for nostalgia’s sake. Pulling up to the unimposing food stand, I was reminded of the burger joints and drive-ups that began to pop up all over America in the years following World War II, when a newly moneyed middle class was ready to get in their cars and enjoy dinner out for a change. The squat, scrunched brick building with a walk-up window was charming. The cheerful folks that greeted me added a level of comfort and familiarity.  The results once I got my food were decidedly mixed, with dishes that shine and others that lack essential elements.

Ever since the hamburger as we know it was invented around 1900, most likely by Louis Lassen up in Connecticut, it has become as powerful an icon of America as fried chicken, Martha Stewart, or expensive health insurance. In the beginning, the burger was just ground chuck smashed into patties and sandwiched between two pieces of toast. Now every conceivable condiment and topping has been added to the patty, creating monstrosities that more closely resemble landscape art than something you want to take a bite of. Derita Dairy Bar mainly hews to the traditional burger fare: lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, mayo, chili, and slaw. If you want to make your burger a little funkier, they’ve got grilled pineapple, hoisin, teriyaki, fried eggs, and Hawaiian slaw. 

The patties — which can be ordered up to three per burger — are thin, their circumference is larger than the bun, and they have that soft crumble quality that comes from the best handmade burgers. Even though they might not look like it,  if you close your eyes, you just might think you were at a backyard cook-out where the guy or gal at the grill had been making delicious hamburgers for a lifetime. The lettuce retains its crispness and the tomatoes are actually ripe, not tough and flavorless, as is sadly often the case. I need mayonnaise on my hamburger, something that seems to divide people. My Dad and I are two of them. He sees its addition as an equivalent to me desecrating the flag. All I can say is the tang and creaminess contrast well with the slight sweetness of the ketchup and is instantly comforting to me. It takes me back to slathering knifeful after knifeful of Duke’s on my Dad’s Greek-seasoned burgers in our backyard on humid, mosquito-heavy, Carolina summer afternoons. 

Derita Dairy Bar has another backyard cook-out staple that’s definitely worth ordering: the humble hotdog. I’ve been eating chili cheese dogs since elementary school, and one of the best is at Derita Dairy Bar. The bun is soft but merely average; likewise, the hotdog itself isn’t anything gourmet. Where this dish shines is how well it’s cooked and in the incredible chili. The hearty application of Cheese Whiz certainly helps things along the way. The hotdog link is sweaty with grease, giving you that coating of flavor as you snap into the link, and the heartiness of the all meat chili heightens the meatiness of the sausage, creating a carnivore’s extravaganza. 

The french fries, the milkshakes, and the chicken tenders, in contrast, leave you wanting more. In our current take-out centric world, it’s important to cook french fries to a crispness so they can withstand the steam of the take-out container. This is doubly true of a take-out only joint like Derita Dairy Bar. Sadly, the fries tend to be a soggy mess by the time you get to enjoying them. This deficiency is slightly compensated by the seasoning, a blend of Cajun seasoning and what I swear is just a pinch of sugar. Alas, their flimsiness cannot be helped and they make you long for the crispness of something along the lines of a Shake Shack crinkle-cut fry. 

Chicken tenders have a reputation as the picky eater’s crutch, and while that is certainly an undeniable reality, they are popular because they are so comforting. They’re a quantifiable and reliable meal with consistently pleasing results. That’s certainly why I found myself longing to try the tenders at Derita Dairy Bar. At first glance, they look like they would in a glossy magazine advertisement or stretched across your big screen during a Super Bowl commercial break. The golden brown batter has all the peaks and valleys of a Western landscape and the tenders are so jumbo-sized they just might be mistaken for an entire fried chicken breast. Tearing one apart reveals ideally cooked white meat. But when you take a bite, you’re startled by the lack of flavor. One would assume that they would be salted or seasoned in something like Tony Chachere’s, but I could find no evidence of this after several bites. Perhaps that’s why they have so many dipping sauces to choose from. Unfortunately, none of them can compensate for or distract from the distinct lack of seasoning in the batter. Still, their tenders are doing most things right. They look and feel fantastic, they just need a little bit of a heightened flavor profile to make them exceptional.

Ice cream is easily my favorite dessert, so the dairy bar portion of Derita Dairy Bar really caught my eye. Yet the ice cream offerings, too, suffer from being merely average, only a small step above a McFlurry and perhaps even a step below a freezing cold Blizzard from the Dairy Queen on Central Avenue before it closed. Derita Dairy Bar’s milkshakes lack the silky consistency and creaminess of a Dairy Queen Blizzard and seem to liquify quicker, too. 

I find myself coming back to the concept of comfort and what it means in the year 2021. Of course, we all seek comfort in food, but recently it feels like we need it more than ever. And we’ll take it however we can get it. These past eighteen months have stretched many to their breaking point, myself included. So it makes sense that many would want to seek out the food that brings them the most comfort. Derita Dairy Bar’s tenders are certainly comforting, despite being a comfort you’ll have to salt yourself once you get your order.