In praise of Cheese Frenchees

{child_byline}By John Moore

Special to The Denver Gazette {/child_byline}

When I heard that a food truck is serving up Cheese Frenchees on Saturdays outside a brewpub in Timnath, the memories immediately started deep-fat firing – and my arteries instinctively began clogging – at the very thought.

Two days and a no-brainer, 50-mile drive north from Denver later, I was in near tears of joy biting into a delicacy James Beard would envy: Deep-fried American cheese sandwiches made crispy by a batter of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and spices.

OK, so it’s maybe not the most sophisticated of recipes, but still, 40 years ago … the Cheese Frenchee was 55 cents of gastronomic goodness. (And it was named after the Croque Monsieur sandwich of France, so that’s kind of fancy.)

As author Juliet Wittman, longtime theatre critic for Westword, wrote in her novel, “Stocker’s Kitchen”: The smell of food is often the smell of childhood. So many of my strongest memories are of food. Some good, like Mom’s American Beauty spaghetti. Some traumatic, like Mom’s corned beef and cabbage, which my brothers and I stubbornly refused to eat one Halloween, and were thus forced to sit at the family dinner table late into the night, missing an entire year’s worth of trick-or-treating in what went down in family lore as “The Great ’70s Stalemate.” Never eaten it since. Not once.

But then there was the Cheese Frenchee from King’s Food Host, the Nebraska burger chain with the signature crown sign that towered over the corner of Ralston Road and Independence Way in Arvada – and where a Wendy’s ignominiously stands today.

The Cheese Frenchee was the all-time No. 1 favorite food of my youth. But as is often the case with food memories, the cuisine is tied like a pot-roast string to our nostalgia for the times. When I was a kid, we dressed up for two things – church and a night at King’s Food Host. When you grow up in a family of 10 (making ours a fairly average-sized tribe for the time), any night at King’s was a special occasion, what with its plastic hand puppets and King’s Kids figurines. We were always on our best behavior. Well, not always. “I remember getting in trouble once with my friend Libby Thielen for making faces with the ketchup and mustard in the ashtrays,” said my sister, Theresa.

And then there was the famous red phone where you ordered right from the booth. My other sister, Kate, called it “The Bat Phone.” As the youngest of eight, I waited years for my turn to do the honors. Director Bob Wells, a legend in the Denver theater community, was in the same boat as a kid. “Being the youngest, I rarely got the chance to handle the telephone at the table,” he said. “But when it happened, it was the biggest deal in the world.”

Over the course of my childhood, my order never once wavered from the Cheese Frenchee, even as others experimented with modern variations like the Tuna Frenchee. (Gross.)

King’s was started in Lincoln in 1955 by Larry Price and the eponymous James King. The chain grew to 150 locations in 17 states and Canada. When you walked into the Arvada King’s, a giant map of the U.S. lit up with bulbs showing every location, all seeming to form a night sky of burgers, chocolate shakes and root-beer floats. There were many King’s in Colorado, including Littleton, Greeley and Sterling. Longtime BDT Stage actor John Scott Clough’s first job was at the Boulder King’s, which turned into the L.A. Diner (and many other fast-food joints since.)

As beloved as King’s was, it overexpanded too quickly, and, in 1971, the company posted a loss of $1 million. Bankruptcy followed in 1974. I think the founders were just too principled for their own good. King’s would not sell cigarettes (at a time when pretty much everyone smoked) and would not allow patrons to tip servers, “lest they compete with each other for the tip to the extent that they appear greedy.”

After allowing in profit-driven investors, Price was disgusted when new corporate managers installed cigarette machines because he believed it would encourage minors to smoke.

The Arvada King’s finally closed in 1978, the same year my parents divorced and we were forced to sell our childhood home and move to Lakewood. It seemed somewhat appropriate that the King’s way of life came to an end simultaneously to our own.

In the years since, my affection for the now unattainable, ephemeral Frenchee has only grown. I’ve never driven past that Arvada Wendy’s without a sense of simmering sadness. But all that changed recently when I read in Westword that Jeff and Amy Marchio, a young married couple originally from King’s country in Omaha, are offering the original Cheese Frenchee out of their Marchio’s Grill food truck most Saturdays outside Timnath Beerwerks. Some people, they tell me, are even crazy enough to road-trip 50 miles from Denver just to get a taste of one. (No regrets. No apologies. Heading back soon.)

All these years later, the Cheese Frenchee clearly still matters to people, and not just me. So much so that it has its own Facebook page with 1,600 followers. When I mentioned my road trip to Timnath on my own social post a few weeks ago, it triggered a river of melted-cheese memories.

“Fat, between two layers of carbohydrates, coated with more carbohydrates, and then fried in deep fat,” is how David Henry Hoth, a seminary student formerly of Denver, describes the Frenchee. In other words: “Amazing.”

My brother, Kevin, admits to feeling some envy for the competing local Little League baseball team that was sponsored by Kings Food Host, presuming they surely got free Frenchees.

Lynne Lee, my high-school pal, had a King’s up the street from her in Lakewood. “As a child, not only was it my favorite restaurant – winning out over The Denver Drumstick and Plainview Inn – but I thought it was obviously the fanciest restaurant because you could order a French Vanilla, Cherry, Lemon Lime Coke,” she said. “That was probably four separate choices, but at the time, I assumed it was just one.”

It wasn’t always fun for Connie Weiskopf to work at the Arvada King’s. The onion rings were also quite popular, “and I hated making them because we would smell like onions for days,” she said.

Note: For food-truck hours and locations, check the Marchio’s Grill Facebook page each week. The Cheese Frenchee is available only on select Saturdays from noon to 8 p.m., usually at Timnath Beerwerks (4138 Main St.). Because festival season has begun, so be sure to check the schedule in advance.

Denver Gazette contributing arts columnist John Moore is an award-winning journalist who was named one of the 10 most influential theatre critics by American Theatre Magazine. He is now producing independent journalism as part of his own company, Moore Media.

{child_related_content}{child_related_content_item}{child_related_content_style}Bio Box{/child_related_content_style}{child_related_content_title}THE CHEESE FRENCHEE: MAKE IT YOURSELF{/child_related_content_title}{child_related_content_content}

THE CHEESE FRENCHEE: MAKE IT YOURSELF

6 slices of Wonder Bread

9 slices American cheese

Mayonnaise

1 egg

½ cup milk

¾ cup flour

1 tsp salt

¾ cup Corn Flake Crumbs

Oil for deep-frying

● Make 3 sandwiches, using 2-3 slices of cheese per sandwich and mayonnaise on each interior portion of the bread. You can choose to remove the crust or not.

● Cut each sandwich into four triangles by cutting on the diagonals. Combine egg, milk, flour and salt (plus any other seasonings you’d like, such as garlic powder) into a paste similar to thick pancake batter. (Add more flour or milk to thicken/thin if needed)

● 1-2 at a time, Dip the triangles into the batter making sure it is completely coated. Then coat with cornflake crumbs using a separate container.

● After all the sandwiches are breaded, briefly freeze on a baking sheet to help the coating set before frying.

● Fry in oil at 365 degrees until golden brown.

● Drain onto paper towels and then serve.

Variations:

● Get fancy: Substitute American cheese with Velveeta.

● Add green chile strips on top of cheese to each sandwich before breading.

● Make it a Tuna Frenchee by skipping the cheese and instead lightly spreading each piece of bread with tuna and just enough mayonnaise to keep it together.

● Top with a pickle slice.

– Courtesy Paul Falk

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