The Chicken War: Popeyes and Chick-fil-a

A controversy that has taken the world by storm: Which fast food chain has the best chicken sandwich? Multiple chicken restaurants are involved within this topic, but Popeyes and Chick-fil-A are two being mentioned the most. The chicken sandwich has since become a political conversation, especially with Chick-fil-A involved. Who feels great eating an anti-LGBTQ+ sandwich? Twitter has been the main source of it all, for both the customers and businesses themselves. The two chains have their own unique take on a chicken sandwich, but one is not a homophobic company who pushes their religious beliefs onto customers, therefore Popeyes is the fast food chain that can best offer a comforting and tasty unproblematic sandwich.

The two fast food chains have been around as long as 1967 for Chick-fil-A and 1972 for Popeyes, creating quite a reputation through the years. It is Chick-fil-A who has developed a messy past revolving around the family’s strict Baptist beliefs. 'The fundamental, biblical principle of Chick-fil-A’s service model is “second-mile service.” The phrase alludes to Jesus’ teaching about going above and beyond required service.” The morals lived out by Chick-fil-a employees are clearly expressed all over the headquarters and some restaurants themselves. S. Truett Cathy, the chain’s owner, has openly admitted to believing marriage is only supposed to be between a man and a woman, given millions to different same-sex marriage organizations, and refuses to put sexual orientation and gender identification in their employee non-discrimination policy. Surprisingly, although we live in cancel culture, this information that made public did not hurt their business as many expected it to. People likely forgot about it since Cathy vowed to stop donating towards those anti-gay organizations. On the other hand, Popeyes has kept an unproblematic past. The most they are known for is having high MSG in their seasoning, some animal cruelty accusations from whom they purchase chicken from, and odd lawsuits. Of course animal cruelty is not good, but at least no anti-humanitarian acts are violated. Popeyes did have a large turn around after their popularity decline since the 80s. A woman named Cheryl Bachelder took over to manage and up their menus and advertising, spending millions of dollars to do so. The flip was successful and even benefits them today. The two have become very popular places that take on different styles of chicken, but now they share popularity between sandwiches. Though this is true, it is obvious which company should be supported.

The topic has been blowing up by chicken enthusiasts since both restaurants are home to many loyal customers. After about a week of releasing the new sandwich, Chick-fil-A posted to twitter: “Bun+Chicken+Pickles = all the heart for the original.” In which Popeyes responded with: “y’all good?” It was after this when social media exploded, “The conversation on Twitter, fueled by Black Twitter in particular, clustered around the hashtags #ChickenWars, and #ChickenSandwichWars, and the less combative, more descriptive #ChickenSandwichTwitter.” Not only do critics say the new Popeyes sandwich is better by flavor, but that they are glad to no longer need to support Chick-fil- A’s problematic beliefs to get a good chicken sandwich. USA Today even got involved by creating a poll that brought in more than five thousand Twitter users, ending with 54% for Chick-fil-A and 46% for Popeyes. Though they lost the poll, Popeyes has been skyrocketing with popularity, “Google searches for ‘Popeyes chicken sandwich’ grew almost 1,000% following the Aug. 19th tweets, according to Google Trends. Many Popeyes restaurants subsequently sold out of the sandwich. Lines reached 45 minutes over the weekend in some places. Some towns may even nix the sandwich, because long Popeyes lines are contributing to traffic crashes.” It does not seem that the popularity of it all will be going down any time soon, though the internet is quite unpredictable.

If wanting to eat a sandwich that is delicious and has an unproblematic past, Popeyes is the ideal place. Chick-Fil-A and Popeyes have been a heavily discussed Twitter conversation between both the customers and the two chains themselves, creating world trending hashtags that are still being talked about weeks later. Now when craving a chicken sandwich on Sunday’s, there is no need to get down: Popeyes has a delicious unproblematic sandwich waiting for many to purchase.