Mikesell’s played a significant role in popularizing the No. 1 salty snack in America, the potato chip, which today is an $8 billion category. But back in the early 1900s, the snacks were better known as “Saratoga chips,” named after the town of Saratoga Springs, NY and tied to the stuff of legend.
As the tale is told, on a fated day in 1853, George Crum, the chef at Moon’s Lake House, a popular eatery in a resort town, was frustrated a customer who sent his fried potatoes back to the kitchen, impertinently demanding that he fry them crispier. So Crum reputedly sliced the potatoes ridiculously thin and fried them into an alarmingly crispy state. Naturally, the diner was delighted. The word spread, and Saratoga and Crum secured their spot in the history books.
Of course, potato chips existed in numerous forms before that point in time. Crum wasn’t the first to fry up thinly sliced potatoes to a delicious crisp. But the Saratoga story stuck—and it holds power.
