The funniest part is the owner’s insistence that serving Popeye’s chicken as part of her $15 chicken and waffles meal is all part of her concern for quality:
“We PROUDLY SERVE Popeyes spicy tenders — the best fried chicken anywhere and from New Orleans — which are delivered twice a day,” she wrote…We didn’t do anything wrong. I did something I thought was the best product I could bring in. You don’t want to eat it, don’t eat it.”
It is ironic that a Southern restaurant cannot make their own fried chicken from scratch. However, is it really bad? These days many restaurant buy frozen breaded ready-to-go chicken to make their fried chicken. This is just one step more. A few years ago (when I was still a young handsome boy), I remember eating a seafood restaurant and ordered the pulled pork sandwich. The waitress and I talked a little bit later, she told me the pulled pork is smoked many hours and is sourced from a near by good quality barbecue joint.
Obviously they’ve never been to SE Asia. It doesn’t happen all that often but occasionally you will go somewhere and order off the menu. Nothing will happen in the kitchen but someone will hop on their motorbike and sometime later reappear with your food obviously bought from a stall or restaurant elsewhere then recanted into their plates.
Exactly. I don’t think it is a bad thing that they source from another restaurant. This is a well known practice even in US. If you go to a regular restaurant, their BBQ is probably sourced. Desserts are often not made in house. Philadelphia Dim Sum Garden got it big break because Jose Garces sourced their soup dumplings for his shops: "including Jose Garces, who buys them wholesale for his Atlantic City noodle bar. "
I think the only news here is that this restaurant sources the fried chicken from Popeye’s as opposed to something more well respected.
Many customers had valid concerns. (I followed the discussion on FB…like watching a train wreck in slow motion).
One issue is that she’s not “sourcing” the chicken from Popeye’s but RESELLING the chicken without Popeye’s knowledge or consent. And she’s passing it as her own while defending that her menu clarifies MOSTLY made from scratch Southern cooking. The other concern is food handling and safety. The chicken already sits under a lamp at Popeye’s. It gets served and transported to her kitchen. How is it held? How long is it in the “danger zone”?
I do think Popeye’s makes a quality product.
There’s nothing simpler to fry than chicken tenders and fresh hot ones beat Popeye’s under a heat lamp every day.
That’s the issue as far as I’m concerned.
