Forgotten Winnipeg home once dished up food, music as hub for Black community

Tucked in a short street with a handful of homes squeezed onto postage-stamp lots sits one nondescript building that holds, behind its boarded-up windows, a significant history — particularly for Manitoba's Black community.

The structure at 257 Lulu St., next to a parking lot girded by a rusted rail fence, was once Haynes Chicken Shack, a gathering place renowned for its southern U.S.-style food and live music performances.

It was also home to a barrier-breaking man named Piercy Augustus (Percy) Haynes, whose tenacity led him to multiple athletic titles and to become the first Black man in the modern Royal Canadian Navy.

"Piercy Haynes is one of my favourite Winnipeggers," said Christian Cassidy, a Winnipeg historian and blogger of West End Dumplings. "He was an amazing man. He was a community builder."

Despite Hayne's accomplishments and the immense popularity of the chicken shack, there is nothing to indicate the building's distinction to any passersby — and its future looks bleak.

"It was put up for sale a couple of years back and in the ad it specified that it must be torn down," said Cassidy. "I think it's really sad that it's in that state and I'm not sure what can be done."

Haynes was born in 1911 in what was then known as British Guiana, now Guyana, and grew up in the Lulu house after his family moved to Winnipeg in 1912.

He was part of the Stella Mission's track team, the Olympics, which won the Dominion teen athletics championship in 1928. He was also a member of the Winnipeg Stellars basketball team that won the 1932 Dominion amateur basketball championship.

He was the city's amateur welterweight boxing champ in 1933 and 1934, and led a number of softball teams to city playoffs and championships as pitcher.

And Haynes was a gifted piano player and vocalist who became a fixture in Winnipeg's music scene.

"There was so much of his life that he was out there in the public and made a name for himself in a time where Blacks couldn't make a name for themselves," said Andre Sheppard, a member of the Black History Manitoba Celebration Committee.

"He had that drive to get out there and break down those barriers."

In 1932, Haynes met jazz singer Zena Bradshaw, who had recently moved to Winnipeg from Edmonton with her young son. They became a performing duo and lived at the Lulu address before the Second World War called to Haynes.

He tried to enlist, like many of his friends, with the Royal Canadian Navy but was told minorities weren't allowed, the Manitoba Historical Society says.

Unwilling to accept no as an answer, he repeatedly wrote to officials in Ottawa, including Naval Secretary Angus McDonald, who was the former premier of Nova Scotia and federal minister of defence for naval services.

So convincing and persistent was Haynes that the rules were changed and he became the first Black naval member.

"The thought that he had to browbeat people into submission to let them join is just amazing," said Sheppard, who retired from the navy as a petty officer, the same rank as Haynes.

Sheppard, who's originally from Nova Scotia but was posted to Victoria, B.C., and then Winnipeg in 1996, said he had always assumed the colour barrier for the navy was broken on the east coast, home to Canada's largest naval base, not by someone from the middle of the continent.

"When I found out it was Winnipeg, I was lost for words. I didn't know what to think, but it just made me even more eager to find out Piercy Haynes' story," he said.

A Winnipeg Free Press article by Cassidy from seven years ago says Haynes never went to sea during the war. Instead, his skills as a composer and entertainer kept him in Halifax entertaining troops and staging musical shows.

Zena briefly relocated there and they performed together. Haynes was also part of a musical revue show that played for troops and civilians across Canada and the United Kingdom. 

He even appeared in a 1945 movie version of the show, filmed in Britain.

After the war, Haynes spent 29 years as a porter with the Canadian Pacific Railway while also building his musical career.

He and Zena married in 1943 and later expanded their Lulu bungalow several times as it evolved into Haynes Chicken Shack.

The restaurant opened in 1952 and was run by Zena and her sister Alva Mayes, serving up southern staples like fried chicken, chicken tamales, barbecue spareribs, chili con carne and creole shrimp.

It sounds like everyone in the Black community visited the chicken shack at some point, Sheppard said.

"This place doesn't look that big for all the entertainment and everything that was going on inside there. It's just amazing," Sheppard said.

"You would think of it [being] more in a different area, a different part of town, for what was going on."

The old shack stands just off Logan Avenue, south of the CP yards in the city's West Alexander neighbourhood — well north of the city centre's theatres and nightclubs.

There was a piano in the restaurant, which led rousing nights of entertainment.

Big-name musicians like Billy Daniels, Oscar Peterson and Harry Belafonte headed there after their concerts downtown and jammed through the night, Cassidy said. 

"It was a tiny house which ended up becoming this huge nightspot," he said.

Haynes eventually retired from CP and he and Zena performed nightly at the restaurant. Growing up around that scene inspired their son, Del Wagner, who became a prominent musician and band leader.

Zena died in 1990 and Haynes, who worked at the restaurant until a week before his death, died in 1992. Two longtime employees bought the restaurant from the estate and tried to keep it going but it closed in 1998.

It was a residence for some time but fell into disrepair and was boarded up in 2012, Cassidy said.

"I am within reason by saying this was one of the city's more important Black community hubs," he wrote in his blog.

Sadly, it seems to have fallen outside the interest of heritage groups, he said in an interview, suggesting fewer resources are put toward simple houses on back streets than on mansions in tony neighbourhoods or downtown buildings.

"Lots of marginal buildings, if you want to call them that, have fascinating histories but because they don't get bumped into that official historic building category, nobody's interested in them and the city doesn't tell their story," Cassidy said.

"It might be too late for this building now, but if the story had been told for 40 years, maybe the building would have never come to look like this," Cassidy said.

Progress has been made toward including more Black history in museums and school curriculums, "but this is stuff that just started coming out lately," Sheppard said.

"How many people know anything about Canadian Black history to even think to save these different sites? So all these years have passed with nothing, and places like the chicken shack go forgotten."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.