What is with Chick-Fil-A's popularity?

[Standing Wolf]

I have to say that I am more likely to run into a grocery store at lunch by myself than I am to stop at fast food places. I have thrown too much fast food back in the bag and crumpled it up. I can be back out the grocery store/self scan, as fast as I can wait in the drive-thru and the have clean restrooms.

Every once in a while for the past couple of months, when I was out shopping or going to the post office, I have stopped at various places that I used to frequent - In-n'-out, Wendy's, Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell and so on - but only once at each place. I'll have a sandwich or some tacos, whatever my preferred order used to be, and realize - that really wasn't very good. I could have had a better lunch at home and saved some money. I think I'm to the point where I'm almost completely past fast food. I haven't been to White Castle lately, mostly because it's sort of on the other side of town, but I imagine I'll be hitting them one day soon, and probably coming to the same conclusion. I think about what Jim Gaffigan said about Hot Pockets. He said, "I've never eaten a Hot Pocket and then thought, 'I'm glad I ate that'." I find that less and less these days am I glad I ate fast food in general.

[Standing Wolf]

In-N-Out is all about the fries. Freshly cut right above the fryer and they cooked nice and crispy. ...

Funny, the fries are what I like least about In-N-Out. If I was really jonesing for some French fries I would go to McDonald's. Most of McD's food is sub-par at best, but those fries are really good.

[Retirednsmilin308]

Medina just got a chick-fil-a. It opened yesterday. I heard the line was around the block and it had the main drag tied up for hours. I heard they lined up the night before 'to be first'.

Why? I've been there a few times over the years and thought it was ok. Nothing special.


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Same here. Just had a place open a few months ago. Cops showed up to direct traffic.
Took the wife in after things settled down.

meh...

Popeye's and Burger King make one much better.

[carolina73]

When Krispy Kreme donuts hit Phoenix twelve years ago, people who'd moved here from places where they were sold went into a state of sustained rapture. "Oh, they're the best donuts in the world!" And lines were incredibly long for a few weeks and then most folks began to realize that the hype was just that - hype. There are much better donuts to be had all over the city.

Much the same thing happened when the first In-N-Out Burger opened in Arizona in 2007. We were told that it was a really good hamburger, and not just by Donnie in The Big Lebowski. They're still busy at the location near my home, but I think it has more to do with the fact that their food is much cheaper than at most fast-food burger places, and the friendliness and courtesy of their almost frighteningly pleasant young employees, more than with how good the burgers are.

A few years ago White Castle announced that they'd be opening a franchise here the following year and I have to admit that I went a little nuts, not having had a White Castle - except for the frozen ones, which suck - in many years. For weeks after they opened you couldn't get near the place. I waited a month or so and then went - foolish me, at lunch time on a Saturday - and waited in line for two and a half hours for my "crave case". (Don't ask.) Of course I'd eaten half a dozen before I got out of the parking lot. The crowd was very esoteric demographically: obvious yuppies, old people, large Mexican families, at least one motorcycle club. The place is still busy, but nothing like in the beginning. I believe a lot of transplants from elsewhere - as most Phoenicians are - have gotten their White Castle fix, satisfied themselves that it's not going away anytime soon and will be there when they need another, and they don't feel the need to go every week, as many of us had sworn that we would.

As for Chick-Fil-A, yeah, I agree with those who've suggested that with some folks it's probably at least partially a sociopolitical statement to pass up other chicken places to go there. Not to say that some people don't genuinely like their product better than others - I'm sure that's true, too. I've only eaten at a Chick-Fil-A twice. The first time I had a sandwich, which was just average, and the second time I tried the "nuggets", which I thought were actually pretty awful.

Kripsy Kreme is another one. I would get on a plane on Monday morning and there would be boxes of Krispy Kreme in the overhead bins. People did not have them in their home area and would take them boxes back with them.

[DGUtley]

Not too far from my office is the oldest continually operating Krispy Kreme in the country. Open 24 hours. There's a donut in the name on the sign that if it is lit up you get a free glazed donut. They literally pull it off of the line and hand it to you.


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[Standing Wolf]

Kripsy Kreme is another one. I would get on a plane on Monday morning and there would be boxes of Krispy Kreme in the overhead bins. People did not have them in their home area and would take them boxes back with them.

I've read about military units that were deployed overseas whose C.O.s would have a pallet or two of White Castles airlifted in.

[countryboy]

I've read about military units that were deployed overseas whose C.O.s would have a pallet or two of White Castles airlifted in.

My knee jerk reaction was, "gee, what a frivolous use of taxpayer money", but then I thought a little harder. If it brings some joy and comfort to the men and women serving overseas, hell yeah, airlift those hamburgs in. It's the least we can do.

[Abby08]

In-N-Out is all about the fries. Freshly cut right above the fryer and they cooked nice and crispy.
The exposed kitchen let's you know that nothing is sitting under the heat lamp with some creepy looking kid tampering with it.

McDonald's used to do their fries that way, I remember when they first opened in my town, you could watch them hand cutting the potatoes (well, putting them through the french fry cutter) but, they were freshly made.

That all changed, when they got too big, that's when they started getting the fries delivered frozen, in large bags.

[Mister D]

McDonald's used to do their fries that way, I remember when they first opened in my town, you could watch them hand cutting the potatoes (well, putting them through the french fry cutter) but, they were freshly made.

That all changed, when they got too big, that's when they started getting the fries delivered frozen, in large bags.

When they stopped using beef tallow things went downhill.

[The Booman]

I love their food. It's always consistent. It also doesn't hurt that the one by me has a playground so the dining room is filled with young moms and everyone behind the counter are for some reason Eastern European college girls.