Your comment seems unbelievable to me, though maybe this has more to do with my distaste for lines in general, but I can't believe that a fast food place has developed a sandwich that would warrant a 30 minute drive let alone a 25 minute wait.

I love the food in question, fried chicken sandwiches, and I was fairly disappointed with my first Chick-Fil-A sandwich, it was fairly lackluster. In my experience there are far better examples in non-chain restaurants that would warrant a bit of a wait.

Your comment may have convinced me to swing by a Popeyes, during a low usage time period, and give it a try.

Keep in mind Popeyes is not really fast food. Unless you're ordering fried chicken, everything is cooked to order. They are bound by physics as to how fast they can cook a piece of chicken while keeping it delicious. Add assembly time, and even when it's empty, the cashier will tell you "it'll be 10 minutes" on a sandwich order.

Other things that a non-patron of Popeyes should know:

* There is a daily special (Wednesday is sandwiches in my region, it may be different in yours).

* There are coupons on the web site

* It is more expensive than fast food

* Being slightly mis-treated is part of the Popeyes experience. It's sort of how Chickfila is known for being incredibly nice to all patrons . . . well Popeyes is the opposite. If you don't leave feeling somewhat slighted, you didn't quite get the full experience.

It's been my experience that they do prepare chicken ahead of time. I've always seen trays of cooked chicken sitting under heat lamps. Also, I'm not sure about your last point. I eat at Popeyes about once a month and have never felt that their service was any different from any other fast food establishment.

Every Popeye's experience I've had seems to be a greasy, soggy mess. I keep giving them new shots for some reason, and I keep getting disappointed.

> Unless you're ordering fried chicken, everything is cooked to order.

So all the sides (fries, potatoes, biscuits, rice and beans, etc) are made to order?

The fries are definitely prepared more frequently -- biscuits too -- but the sides are not what I would call the best part of Popeyes because they can be made in bulk and put under heating lamps for longer periods of time than say, chicken.

I don't know how quickly the chicken turns over but it's pretty consistent -- especially if you're ordering something specific (X number of legs, Y thighs, Z breasts), because they need to ensure the proper quantity and that may require breading and then deep-frying the chicken on-demand.

The seafood is probably more "prepared to order" than anything, but I honestly don't know. I've never worked at a fast food restaurant, I'm just a giant and unabashed fan of trash food.

I want to be clear that nothing about the situation was rational -- I understand that. Part of the journey was that it was indeed "a journey" -- and my friends who are also trash food aficionados/pseudo hype-beasts were more than willing/excited to do this stupid stunt with me.

That said, the sandwich was legitimately good in a way I was not expecting. I brought one home for my husband and even coldish, he was extremely impressed.

So yes -- if you're near a Popeyes, once the hysteria has died down, I highly recommend it.

I worked at a fast food place when I was young that served fried chicken. The fried chicken always took longer than everything else. One day I was left by myself for an afternoon shift without really knowing what to do. I'd never worked that shift and the person that was supposed to replace me never showed up. The chicken orders started showing up, I hadn't realized I was supposed to have started cooking chicken about a half hour before then. People were pissed. Most people ended up waiting at least 20 minutes. A few people just straight up left.

I'm in Australia so I can not get the food but it sounds a lot like what happens in Asia. I place will open and become "Instagram famous" (Or WeChat) and the lines will be crazy.

But a few weeks (months??) later the shop is as dead as a nail.

It appears all of the "hottest" places get 15 minutes of fame then dies.

> I love the food in question, fried chicken sandwiches, and I was fairly disappointed with my first Chick-Fil-A sandwich, it was fairly lackluster.

I think this is enough of an indicator that your experience is atypical. perhaps you'd recommend some of these non-chain restaurants with great chicken sandwiches tho? i have yet to have any that are as good per $

> I can't believe that a fast food place has developed a sandwich that would warrant a 30 minute drive let alone a 25 minute wait.

I take it you're not familiar with the craze surrounding In-n-out. In high school, we used to drive 3 hours into the neighboring state to get Animal Style junk food.

I live around the corner from the Chick-fil-A just outside the Fulton St station. They have a snaking line inside _and_ a roped off line outside. A line to wait in line, and the outside line often is 40, 50, 60 people plus. I suspect some of those people waited as long as you did end to end, for a chain chicken sandwich in one of the culinary capitals of the world. To someone who hates lines, that's mind boggling!

Or you can go inside the station and get pre-assembled, slightly-soggy sandwiches from their kiosk with no wait. IMO definitely worth the tradeoff.

I think I was better off not knowing this fact.

No lines on Sundays.

Hey neighbor!

When I first took a bite out of Popeye's chicken sandwich I had two immediate thoughts.

1. This thing is delicious!!

2. Poor poor Chick-fil-A. Popeye's sandwich is much better. And I can eat it any day of the week.

On the bright side, the people who work for Chick-fil-A have at least one known, consistent day off each and every week. For most of you who have not worked a job outside of tech, that's a pretty big deal.

Oh, I agree. My sister works in the fast-food industry. She never knows what days she have off. Its horrible. Chick-fil-A is doing something right here.

I used to go kayaking on the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie (on I-90 east of Seattle) instead of the far superior Skykomish run on Highway 2 just because of the Popeye's at the Tanner exit of 90, right by the Snoqualmie run.

I mean, you aren't wrong, it's a dang good sandwich. I too waited 20 minutes in a line of 2 cars for it. I wonder though, how much of the hype is because of people who are frustrated with the Chick Fil A owner's beliefs, and not necessarily because it's a great meal? I would wager it has definitely contributed.

Yeah, I think the "moral" component is part of it, at least online. I'm not sure in practice how much of an impact that has had on the people showing up and waiting in line for the food.

When push comes to shove, a lot of people can be enraged online and still patron a fast food chain that offers very good food with very consistent service and quality -- even if we do it feeling guilty. And plenty more people just don't care.

This is obviously anecdotal and not based on any scientific information -- and it's also based on at least a little bit of stereotyping -- but the Popeyes I went to, which is in Renton, isn't the type of place -- nor is that location the type of location -- that attracts Twitter/extremely online people. Most of the people there looked like they were locals/lived in the area who wanted to try to latest sandwich everyone is talking about. This was suburbia.

I will say the whole "Chick-fil-A alternative" framing probably played a big role in the initial media push which has now trickled down into lots of other places, even if the political aspect is lost and it just becomes about the hype around the sandwich.

I have never had fast food that warranted waiting that long in line for. Rarely, there's good fast food, but nothing extraordinary. It's all kind of gross.

But given that you are in NYC, you have a lot of other options then. So may be worth a try.

get the spicy

As someone who never had Popeyes until recently I thought their food was generally trash as is most fast food. Disclaimer I love Mcdonalds but found this very low quality even compared to them.

It sounds like how White Castle was described in that one movie.

I'm not sure if I've ever had Popeyes, but I was really craving fried chicken today. Maybe I'll stop at the spot on the way home.