Paul Vinyard said he opened Babe’s Chicken Dinner House with a mission to bring families together and to help others.

Paul and his wife Mary Beth, whose nickname was Babe, first opened Babe’s Chicken in Roanoke, Texas, in 1993. Paul said he and his wife opened the restaurant hoping to take care of their children and put them through college. Years later, nine locations are now open in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, including one in Frisco that opened in 2008.

One of the last things Mary Beth did before dying in 2008 was decorate the Frisco location for the grand opening. Paul said her legacy continues with the name of the restaurant as well as the recipes that she developed.

“We prepare the kind of food we grew up on in West Texas,” Paul said. “We grew up going to family reunions, but nowadays that has changed because it’s so hard to get people together on a regular basis. So to get the family together and eat together is a big deal.”

In what looks like an old barn, Babe’s Chicken serves a southern style family meal. The tables are big enough to fit a family of eight or more. Guests are served an array of side dishes to share among each other.

“We’ve really concentrated on being a place for families, and we just try our best every day to prepare the food of our mothers,” Paul said. “We don’t try to reinvent the wheel here; our creativity comes from being able to do it the same way every day. We want our customers to feel at home when they come here.”

Some signature entrees at Babe’s Chicken are fried chicken ($12.99), chicken fried steak ($12.99) and fried catfish ($13.99). All entrees are served with a house salad, green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuits and cream gravy.

Desserts are made from scratch and include lemon meringue pie ($2.99 per slice), pineapple upside-down cake ($2.99 per slice) and cobbler ($2.99 per slice).

Paul said the restaurant also has a mission to help teenagers fulfill their potential.

“The Lord has asked us to treat this business as a mission, and we believe that our primary mission is the teenage girls that work for us,” Vinyard said. “Sometimes they live in such a bubble that we want to educate them about the world around them.”

Vinyard and his team bring in speakers to share their testimonies or help the employees become more responsible in their jobs and lives.

“Our objective is to bring back the family dinner table and make a difference in our employees’ lives,” Vinyard said.

All of Babe’s Chicken locations have remained in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with plans to open a location in North Richland Hills later this year.

“The endgame is to grow slowly but grow with quality while making a difference in people’s lives,” Paul said.

6475 Page St., Frisco 214-387-9500 www.babeschicken.com Hours: Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., 5-9 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.