If you’re not familiar with Chicken Salad Chick, it has a wonderful back-story of how Stacy Brown grew from a home based kitchen in Auburn, Alabama to a store front with locations all over the Southeast from Texas to the Carolinas. Today, there are over 15 different chicken salad varieties, with something to please everyone! All of them are available as scoops, as sammies, as combos (half sandwich/cup of soup), as duos, as trios, AND to pick up by the pound.
I’ve been a huge fan ever since my first bite a couple of years ago, so you can imagine how excited I was when the baby and I received an invite to taste their new fall menu. We pulled on our stretchy pants and hit the road.
I’ve never done anything like this and had no idea what to expect. My best guess was that we’d be given a little tasting spoon full of a few items and be on our way. Well, that couldn’t have been farther from reality. They brought us out plate upon plate upon plate. So yummy!!
Our first dish was Rockin’ Rita and Buffalo Barclay with crackers and Fritos. Rockin’ Rita is made with Wickles Spicy Red Relish has the perfect amount of heat, especially paired with the Fritos. Buffalo Barclay is just like a buffalo chicken wing dip. These ended up being two of our very favorites! In fact, we are going to be taking a tub of the Rockin’ Rita and the Fritos to our Halloween soiree as an appetizer. This location sells the chicken salad by the tub AND the Fritos right there in the shop. Easy peasy!
Next up was the Fancy Nancy on a croissant with a side of the broccoli salad and a chocolate chip cookie. Fancy Nancy, full of apples, pecans and grapes, is one of my go-tos but I had never tried it on the croissant. Super yummy! The broccoli salad is also one of my faves and is a MUST TRY.
Another seasonal item that I was crazy about was the Strawberry Pecan Salad with poppy seed dressing. This was paired with a scoop of Classic Carol, the signature chicken salad that started it all.
Okay, this plate was another one that we both just fell in love with. It’s a Kickin’ Kay Lynne on wheat bread with a side of grape salad, salt and vinegar chips and a snickerdoodle cookie!! In fact, trying all these new things and having them put together with other items that just “go together” was one of my favorite things about our afternoon. I never would have ordered this exact meal, but all the flavors went together perfectly. I’ve loved the grape salad ever since the first time I dared to try it – it just seemed odd. But it’s DELISH! Like a nice, cool, light dessert. Well, the owner gave me a little tip to crumble up the snickerdoodle cookie on top of it and, let’s just say, I can never go back.
This plate looks a whole lot like my standard order! I almost always get the Chick Trio with a scoop of chicken salad (this one is Cranberry Kelli with cranberries and almonds), a scoop of the pimento cheese (theirs is SO good!), a side of the broccoli salad and a cookie. Now, if I’m not being super piggy, I can eat half and take half home to the baby for his after school snack. We took the buttercream frosted cookie home and ate it the next day. It was a REALLY good cookie, and I know my way around an iced sugar cookie.
This doesn’t even cover everything we tried!! Another new-to-me fave was the Jalapeno Holly on toasted sourdough (they are testing toasting now and it’s goooood) with a side of the tortilla soup. It was such a yummy, comfort type meal that will be perfect if the temps ever cool off. The baby loved the pumpkin cheesecake and, I do agree, it was tasty.
At the end of our tasting, the baby was stretched out on his side of the bench saying he could never eat again. HA! When they asked him if he had any suggestions he said “I think you should also let dogs in and serve them all kinds of flavored dog foods so that there is something for every palate.” The owner couldn’t help but chuckle. :-)
As you can tell, the incredible staff and owner were absolutely THE NICEST and fed us well beyond our expectations. In fact, they boxed up everything we couldn’t eat and we fed Honey and John for dinner that night and all four of us for dinner the next night! It was also a pretty memorable experience and unique little outing with my baby. <3
If you’ve tried Chicken Salad Chick I’d love to know YOUR favorite!
DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
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