Lewis Rudd (left) fist bumps a customer who said he enjoyed his dining experience at Ezell's.

On Saturday, Feb. 3, Lewis Rudd, his brother Darnell Rudd, and sister Faye Stephens will mark a milestone.

It will be 40 years since the founders of Ezell’s Famous Chicken opened their first restaurant in Seattle’s Central District.

Today, the family-owned and operated business boasts 16 locations in Washington, with its lone Oregon operation located in Tigard at the Washington Square mall annex space along Washington Square Road at Greenburg Road.

The three siblings still participate in the day-to-day operations of the restaurant whose fans include Oprah Winfrey, The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Quincy Jones, the Seattle Seahawks and more.

‘We just had to go full-steam ahead’

On Thursday, Feb. 1, both Lewis and Darnell Rudd were on hand to pay tribute to the chain’s longevity.

“We started out with a vision to build a world class brand, and that’s from Day 1,” said Lewis Rudd during an interview at the Tigard restaurant where he donned the white uniform he wore when the restaurant opened four decades ago.

Lewis Rudd said Ezell’s mission statement has including offering products that are “fresh, never frozen.” That has meant always purchasing high-quality chicken and producing flavorful homemade side dishes served with fast, courteous service.

He also believes the fried chicken restaurant has stayed true to its values statement of honesty, loyalty and relationships, which has made the restaurants such a success.

While Lewis Rudd admits that there were times along the way where he wasn’t quite sure how he and his siblings would figure out things related to their business, they always held onto an attitude that “we can do this.”

“We quit our jobs so didn’t have nothing to fall back on,” he said. “We just had to go full-steam ahead, and we knew we had a concept and a product that would compete with any other out there. Our biggest challenge was getting access to capital, access to information, access to resources.”

A little help from Oprah Winfrey

He said being a Black-owned business, there were certain hurdles to clear in 1989 as they eyed a second location.

“When we went to open our second location, we experienced for the first time what we could recognize as the systemic racism and the ‘redlining’ because we were in an area where in Seattle, the Central District … 84% of the people that lived in that area and did business in that area were from the African American community, were Black people. Now it’s less than 14%,” Lewis Rudd said.

The planned restaurant was deemed as high-risk by bankers, and it was a practice by people in the lending community not to loan in those communities fearing they might fail, he said.

“We eventually got a loan, but what worked for us was when Oprah came to town and mentioned the chicken and we had people driving up from Longview (Washington), driving down from Bellingham …,” Lewis Rudd said.

When the famed talk show host and celebrity mentioned how good Ezell’s Famous Chicken was, it was the restaurant’s patrons and supporters, not the banks, that began bringing the money in.

“We were able to pay bills,” Lewis Rudd said.

The fact Oprah mentioned Ezell’s on air, “just kind of put us on the map and those that were nonbelievers, some of them became believers at that point.”

And Oprah supported the restaurant even further.

“We actually catered for one of her birthday parties back in Chicago at Harpo Studios before she moved out of there,” Lewis Rudd said. “She loved the sweet potato pie.”

Lewis believes it was “all the love” that Winfrey experienced at the restaurant when she came in that first time that lead to the catering invite.

Chicken for a cause

While not giving up what the secret ingredients in Ezell’s chicken are, he said the restaurant’s spicy chicken includes marinating the birds in a New Orleans Creole seasoning that gives it a flavor a diner can taste “all the way down to the bone.”

On Thursday, Lewis Rudd wanted to know what customers thought of their lunch.

“It was amazing,” one fan told him. “Best fried chicken place I’ve ever been to. Better than Popeyes, better than KFC, better than any other chicken place and I will not stop coming here.”

Even after all these years, Lewis Rudd still bubbles with enthusiasm in a demonstration of how Ezell’s three-rise rolls are baked fresh each day.

“Each location makes everything from scratch,” he said, describing in detail how the dough is prepared, cut and served.

For the month of February, the company has launch a “40 for 40” campaign where guests can add a 40-cent donation to their orders to support the Hazel Danielle Clayton Foundation. A former employee who passed away last year, Clayton had a passion for helping children in their educational development and often drove from Seattle to Portland to support a variety of those causes on behalf of Ezell’s.

“Funds that we raise, we want to be able to continually keep her legacy alive, that passion that she had for the community,” said Lewis Rudd. “She didn’t have any kids of her own but everyone else’s kids were her kids.”

In 2021, the Rudd’s also established Rudd’s R.U.B.B (Raising Up Black Businesses), which financially empowers Black-owned businesses in the Pacific Northwest.

Ezell’s coming to a spot near you?

While Lewis Rudd calls his sister Faye Stephens the brains of the entire restaurant operation, he credits his brother Darnell Rudd for having a passion for all the restaurant’s recipes, saying his sibling is in charge of all quality control issues.

So set on serving as many original ingredients and products as possible, Darnell Rudd recently drove from Seattle to Spokane, Washington, before landing in Oregon in search of the favored milk the company uses to make its chicken batter. Lewis Rudd said Ezell’s “won’t just substitute and use anything.”

When the Rudd’s opened their first restaurant, Darnell Rudd said he never thought it would reach the point of success it’s enjoyed but from the get-go was willing to help out any way he could.

Today, he’s pleased at that success.

“We are blessed and happy and all that,” he said.

Lewis Rudd said the Tigard location is doing well and holding its own.

Ezell’s also has plans to open another Portland-area restaurant.

While Lewis Rudd and his team have been looking at downtown Portland, he’s also been looking at sites in Washington County, including the Cedar Hills area or close to Nike World Headquarters operations.

“We need a few more down here,” he said about adding another Oregon restaurant.