Big John Steak & Onion
company
Big John Steak & Onion, aka BJs & Onion or Steak and Onion and formerly Slick-Chick, Inc., is a regional sub sandwich chain. The name came from a nickname that the founder, John E. Klobucar, had received from his friends. The chain is considered a restaurant icon of the Flint Area.
History
John E. Klobucar opened Flint, Michigan's first Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1963, the first outside of the Detroit area. He incorporated his business on August 16, 1967, as Slick-Chick, Inc. A decade later in 1973, Klobucar started Big John Steak and Onion, the first restaurant to serve submarine sandwiches in the Flint Area. The first location was opened on Dort Highway, near Court Street, and is still operating there. The original menu was the Steak and Onion plus 2 other subs and a Koegel hot dog. His brother Joseph "Joe" Klobucher opened Big John Chicken & Sandwich Factory franchise where he lived in Caro in 1973. On September 16, 1975, Slick-Chick changed its name to Big John Steak & Onion, Inc.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4905913. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 1967, 1973 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Big John Steak & Onion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.