The Popeyes Chicken Sandwich That's Enraging Reddit
Popeyes has historically been known for its fried chicken and delicious buttermilk biscuits, though since August 2019 and the advent of the chicken sandwich wars, consumers have been flocking to buy their chicken sandwich, with foot traffic in 2021 even surpassing pre-pandemic levels (per Yahoo Finance). Developing the sandwich was serious business, a project two years in the making that entailed using a special flour, applying the same buttery topping used in their famous biscuits to the bun, and cutting thick, barrel-cured pickles that outsized the competition's, according to QSR.
Social media buzz and an online spat with Chick-fil-A helped spread the word, and skyrocketing demand for the chicken sandwich quickly caused Popeyes to sell out just two weeks after launch. The hype only continued as glowing reviews poured in, including from such esteemed news outlets as Time and The New Yorker, who sent reporters to investigate the chicken craze.
Popeyes also introduced a spicy chicken sandwich to the mix earlier this year, in the hopes of striking while the iron's still hot (via CNN). One person's recent unpleasant experience with the spicy chicken sandwich had contributors to the subreddit r/Popeyes enraged and illustrated that not everything is always rosy on the chicken sandwich front.
A casualty of the chicken sandwich wars?
Reddit user shinguard posted a photo of a spicy chicken sandwich that he ordered from Popeyes that appeared to consist of two Popeyes chicken strips shoved between slices of bread, with all the sauce concentrated on one side of the sandwich. Another crucial flavor detail omitted was the pickles, which were nowhere to be found. Fellow community members were aghast but largely unsurprised at this sandwich abomination.
Redditor fishgats stated that this type of thing is "par for the course with Popeyes." One commenter shared their own disappointing ordering experience with the sandwich. "Very recently I got the spicy chicken sandwich and they had put a breast piece with bones in there. Was very unhappy and I haven't had one since." Another expressed their profound disgust: "That looks horrible!" User BoomHazard said they could empathize with shinguard's pain. "Same thing happened to to me today." Meanwhile, Dangerous-Range-3029 injected a little sardonic humor into the conversation, proclaiming, "I hope you paid with half of two bills."
Different reasons were floated for the sandwich mishaps, from poor management at certain locations to corporate greed. But all this begs the question: amid the haste to pump out a high quantity and meet consumer demand, has quality become the latest casualty of the chicken sandwich wars? On that front, Fortune reports that the chain has plans to remove MSG from its fried chicken by 2025.