Charles Vogel | Staff Columnist
A chicken sandwich is pretty simple at its core: fried chicken and a bun. You can get chicken sandwiches at pretty much any fast food restaurant due to that simplicity. When Popeyes new chicken sandwich first came out, there was little talk about the sandwich. It is just a chicken sandwich, after all.
Then things changed; a few back and forth tweets with Chick-fil-A later and all of a sudden everyone had to try this new concoction out for themselves.
Many said that Popeyes had dethroned Chick-fil-A as having the best fast-food chicken sandwich — a very sacred title to hold, apparently. All over the news for weeks in late August and early September was talk about this new Popeyes sandwich and how great it was. People were waiting in lines for hours to get their hands on the fried chicken and a bun.
A lot of the time people would make it to the front of the line only to be told that they had run out of sandwiches and to come back tomorrow.
Popeyes then implemented a limit on how many sandwiches you were allowed to purchase due to many people buying them in “bulk” to resell online. Then all of a sudden Popeyes ran out of its sandwiches. They were sold out. Many people questioned how on earth you could run out of chicken on a bun.
But they did. Popeyes was out of the chicken sandwiches for two months. It seemed during that time no one really talked about Popeyes and it was all forgotten. Then Popeyes announced the sandwich was coming back on Sunday, Nov. 4th. which was national sandwich day and also Sunday, a day that Chick-fil-A is always closed.
But would the excitement and hype surrounding these sandwiches continue after a two-month drought? Who would still care about a fast food chicken sandwich?
On Sunday, Nov. 4, people reported lines over 3 hours long to get the sandwich, some even citing having waited eight hours. Yes, eight hours for a chicken sandwich.
That’s not the worst of it, though. A man was stabbed to death over cutting in line at a Maryland Popeyes. A sandwich to die for.
No food on earth is worth killing someone over, especially not fried chicken on a bun.
Do you remember the old commercials for Klondike ice cream bars? “What would you do for a Klondike bar?” A man then posed the question “would you kill a man?” Little did we know that it wouldn’t be a Klondike bar someone would kill someone over it would be a Popeyes chicken sandwich.
Fights all over the country have broken out at various Popeyes restaurants over the chicken sandwich. Chaos has ensued.
It sounds a lot like this sandwich is equivalent to the holy grail to some people. People who waited hours in line have said that it was worth it and it’s the best chicken sandwich ever. Some have suggested that Popeyes stop selling the sandwich due to all the chaos it’s causing.
Popeyes, of course, has said no to that idea. If you have a product that people are literally killing each other over, in many people’s minds that means you’ve struck gold.
What’s the solution to this problem? It’s pretty simple, don’t try the chicken sandwich. Don’t give in to this pointless hype. You aren’t missing out on anything. It won’t change your life.
Popeyes shouldn’t be to blame for this. Yes, it certainly isn’t exactly doing anything to lessen this chaos, but all it is doing is selling a chicken sandwich.
As a society, it wouldn’t hurt to be more civil and to stop hurting and killing each other over nothing. If you still want to try the Popeyes chicken sandwich even after all this, wait a month or maybe two for all of this to settle down.
No matter how good it is, it’s still just fried chicken and a bun.