What a difference a bit of time makes.
On the way home from a Yelp event, my sister and I decided we needed a quick little pick-me-up for the drive back home. Seeing that we were in Kalamazoo and had a better selection of fast food than we usually do out in Paw Paw, we settled on Chick-Fil-A. The last time I'd been there, I'd gotten a tough, hard-to-eat sandwich on a mushy bun, among other things, so I figured a) fried chicken just sounds unbelievably tasty and b) it's a perfect reason to revisit this review and see if they've gotten thier act together.
Surprise of surprises, they have. The food we got was miles ahead of the barely-chewable sandwich we got the last time. (It was still in a bag, though- I don't really understand why they have to use a bag for some sandwiches and boxes for others- the bag's the reason your sandwiches get all mushy after they cool for a while, guys!)
Pulling up through the drive-through, we thought about what we wanted to eat- and came to the conclusion that a pair of #1 meals sounded good- though my sister went with the deluxe version. That gave us a drink, an order of waffle fries, and a sandwich each- for a pretty decent value!
So we put our order in and pulled ahead- and were informed that they were still making a bit of our order, and it might be a couple minutes. Now, what do you usually expect when you hear something like this? You expect to be told to pull ahead to a spot a bit further down the drive, clearly marked so you can wait somewhere and sit, all alone, while hoping that the rest of your order comes together soon and that you're not waiting until parts of your order are noticeably cooler than others.
Not this place. The woman working the window apologized, and actually engaged us in a simple conversation about what we'd been up to in Kalamazoo tonight, where we were from, that kind of thing. Of course, we told her about the Yelp event- how much fun it had been, how awesome all the people were, and how maybe she ought to come out and sign up, too! In a world where we were so used to being shooed out of the way simply because they don't have all our order ready and restaurants that are super, super focused on time spent serving and cooking orders, actually having a pleasant conversation was a nice surprise!
Soon, though, our orders were ready and we got a bag of food and pair of drinks and proceeded on our way home. Deciding that we couldn't wait, we dug into the waffle fries and the sauces we'd been given as part of our meal. Honestly, I know these are meant for the chicken, but the sauces still taste really, really good when you dip the fries into them.
To be honest, the fries were the big hit of the meal. Bulky and big enough to hold the sauce well, being just crispy enough to not really sag when held and dipped, yet still full of soft potato and not at all crispy- if Chick-Fil-A wants to fill a bag full of fries and sauces, and call it the Bag-O-Fries, and want $20 for it, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. They were that good.
The sauces we chose were the Chick-Fil-A sauce and the Polynesian sauce (pretty sure this is just a fancy way of saying "sweet-and-sour", though), and they were both pretty good on fries. I liked the Polynesian much more than the Chick-Fil-A sauce (I honestly just don't like the taste of it, while my sister loves it). I mean, I fully expect you could make a meal of just fries and sauces.
Getting home, we finally decided to tuck into our sandwiches- and finding out mine was in a bag filled me with "well, here we go again"-style vibes. Was I going to get another mushy sandwich? I opened the bag, and...
No mush. Just a pleasantly warm sandwich. I didn't put any other toppings on it, I just ate it how it was.
The chicken was nice and tender, a very far cry from my original sandwich. Though it had been fried just a tad too long- there were places where the breading of the chicken was rather hard and difficult to bite into, but it got eaten just the same. My sister had about the same results with her sandwich- but the toppings were very, very good.
It honestly appears that they've found a new routine here at Chick-Fil-A, and whatever they've done since my first visit, it seems to be honestly working now that the shine has all rubbed off, and the crowds have settled down into an easier-to-handle amount. I hope to be back sooner rather than later- and hopefully I can stop myself from ordering all the fries they have fresh at the moment! read more