Tasty Chick Sign Slowly Coming Back to Life

He might not have it ready for Tuesday's July in the Sky fireworks celebration, but Vernon resident Paul Stansel is well on his way to making the old Tasty Chick sign a parade float.

Stansel acquired the sign from the old fast food eatery last summer and has wanted to turn it into a piece of pop culture art that can be displayed at public functions.

This week, he, along with Mark and Bruce Rittlinger, was able to piece it back together and get a border around it.

The next stop, Stansel said, is to insert new lighting into the sign and set up a frame to make it free-standing and easily mounted on a trailer.

The Tasty Chick restaurant at 243 Regan Rd., known for its fried chicken and seafood, had been sitting vacant for years and the colorful sign with its trademark logo was a shell of its former self. Debbie and Walter Kaczmarczyk bought the building about five years ago because of its frontage and the fact that the back lot abuts their business, .

Jessica Foster, the former owner and director of Dance Nation, moved in and  remodeling the place to open a new venture, .

The sign had been sitting in the building and workers had been renovating around it. Stansel aquired dit last August.

"It's a piece of Vernon history and something like that needs to be saved,'' Stansel said.