A dark turn in the chicken sandwich wars!
Chick-fil-A employees are taking to forums like Reddit to universally pan the fast food chain’s effort to expand its spicy chicken sandwich and nuggets offerings.
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Why? Workers at the Atlanta-based-chain say that the kitchens simply just don’t have the bandwidth to cook these spicy alternatives side-by-side with the regular ones–and in some cases, no one is buying them!
“We just simply don’t have the space,” a Madison, Mississippi Chick-fil-A employee wrote on Reddit last week. “We have only 1 fryer set up for making spicy filets, and its usually behind, so the only way we could make spicy chicken strips/tenders is to share that space, upping the time of everything else, or getting another fryer, which we simply don’t have the room for.”
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The same goes for spicy nuggets and tenders. "Spicy nuggets crashed the kitchen when they tried them cause they couldn’t keep up with the amount of fryers they had," wrote another.
"Basically the demand for a spicy nugget would crash the ability of kitchens to maintain a level of quality in our food preparation," agreed another. "So what would happen is workers would start taking shortcuts and shortcuts lead to bad product. Chick-fil-A also recognizes that you cannot fry spicy items in a regular fryer because then it would make a spicy fryer and so restaurants will have to add new fryers and depending on the individual store’s market response to spicy nuggets they would have to probably add two fryers. You would also have to increase staff in order to keep up with the demand for a new item. And generally kitchens would be flooded and would not be able to keep up."
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"Spicy filets are not just breaded separate from the regular ones, but are shipped in a separate spicy marinade," another user explained in a separate thread from the past. "If we sold spicy nuggets and strips alongside the rest of our items, it would be very difficult to properly estimate demand (which is also a primary reason for their nonexistence) and stock accordingly. The majority of stores barely have enough room in their thawing cabinets to keep up with current demand much less adding yet another type of chicken to the mix." Oh no!
And food critics agree that the spicy sandwiches are flawed. Of the grilled spicy deluxe sandwich which hit menus in January 2021, Insider food critic Andrew LaSane wrote that, "The spicy chicken deluxe's heat detracted from its other flavors." Yikes!
"Like its older spicy relatives, this new addition was a tad too peppery for my liking, and that taste lingered," he wrote.
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Eater reviewer Ryan Sutton agreed of the spicy chicken sandwich, "This rust-colored patty infused with spicy peppers has enough sodium (1,650 milligrams) to turn your bathtub into the Dead Sea."
"Expect the same soft texture as the regular sandwich but with a level of heat that rises briefly to a midlevel intensity and then vanishes, the spice equivalent of a summertime PG-13 thriller," he continued. Say it ain't so!
And the company has a complicated history with adding and pulling spicy sandwiches from its menus.
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If you recall, the spicy version of the classic Chicken Biscuit was taken off the menu in 2016 and is now only available off the secret menu.
As one food blogger pled, "I can’t take anymore spicy chicken heartbreak!" Sorry spice lovers!
