The Fried Chicken Sandwich Wars Are More Cutthroat Than Ever Before
Here’s why everyone from fast-casual chains to chefs at Michelin-starred restaurants are trying to one-up each other.
Something curious recently happened at my go-to office lunch spot. Dig, the fast-casual restaurant where I buy freshly assembled bowls of greens, roasted broccoli, and crispy tofu—seared salmon if I’m feeling fancy—added an unexpected menu item: a crispy chicken sandwich.
For a chain that offers endless combos of mostly anything as long as it can fit in the confines of a bowl, a bulging fried chicken sandwich smothered in a special sauce was an “interesting direction,” concedes Tracy Kim, Dig’s chief executive officer. It works well for high school kids, she says. More important, the chain, which has nearly three dozen locations in the Northeast, was responding to what customers wanted. “We got a lot of requests, especially through catering, for a handheld offering,” Kim says.