Chicken Shack

Mack’s Tea Room was advertised in the Green Book as “Chicken Shack—Cross & Lake St.” under “Restaurants” in Raleigh from 1947-1952.¹

The Green Book advertised a business called “Chicken Shack” at the corner of Cross and Lake Streets in Raleigh, NC. Prior to the Green Book era the business’s full name was “Morgan’s Tea Room and Chicken Shack.” Located at 68 Lake Street, the chicken shack specialized in “chicken-in-the-rough,” fried chicken meant to be eaten with the hands. Hattie Morgan offered fried half chickens, chicken sandwiches, beer, and soft drinks.²

Mack Bunch, the tea room’s second owner, grew up in the Mark’s Creek community in Wake County. He worked odd jobs in Raleigh and Baltimore, Maryland in the 1930s and 1940s. Bunch worked as the manager of Morgan’s Tea Room in the mid-1940s and took ownership of the restaurant in 1947.. Bunch operated Mack’s Tea Room for a decade, from 1947-1958.³

Following a morals charge for running a “bawdy house” in 1958, Mack Bunch was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and the tea room was permanently closed by court order.  He died in Durham, NC in 1985.⁴

Essay by Brandie K. Ragghianti, 2024

Notes

1. Victor Green, 1947 Green Book, 65; Green, 1948 Green Book, 63; Green, 1949 Green Book, 57; Green, 1950 Green Book, 63; Green, 1951 Green Book, 54; Green, 1952 Green Book, 54. 
2. Hill’s 1943 Raleigh City Directory, alphabetical listing, street listing;  “Morgan’s Tea Room and Chicken Shack Advertisement,” The Carolinian, October 6, 1945, Page 2, North Carolina Newspapers/Digital NC, http://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn80008926/1945-10-06/ed-1/seq-2/; Hill’s 1945-1946 Raleigh City Directory, street listing, alphabetical listing. 
3.  “Jones Appointed to Defend Negro,” The News and Observer, September 8, 1946, p. 18, accessed from www.ancestry.com; Peter Wilder, “Hitting the Spots,” The Carolinian, March 1, 1947, p. 5, accessed from http://newspapers.digitalnc.org.
4. “Stiff Morals Terms Given 4 Defendants,” The Carolinian, June 14, 1958, p. 1, accessed from http://newspapers.digitalnc.org; “Mack’s Tea Room Under Padlock,” The Carolinian, June 7, 1958, accessed from http://newspapers.digitalnc.org; “Mack Bunch,” June 11, 1985, Durham, Durham County, North Carolina Death Indexes, 1908-2004, accessed from www.ancestry.com.