Latest visit: May 2023 (Colorado Springs - Interquest)
First visit: May 2017 (North Richland Hills, TX)
Back for another revisit of Slim Chickens. Two years ago our experience was no bueno, but last year's visit was much better. How did we fare this time? Somewhere in the middle I'm afraid. They opened over an hour late for some sort of malfunction, so we piddled around and arrived a few minutes later. All seemed well upon entry. I stuck with the tried and true crispy chicken sandwich with fries. No issues on my side, mostly the same experience as last time. Mrs. RJG inexplicably went for their seasonal salad. Oh man, that was a bad choice. Backyard lettuce out of the bag, with tiny amounts of feta cheese, a few strawberries, and they were out of ranch dressing (how does that even happen?). They substituted vinaigrette which was decent, but not what she wanted. She should have shifted gears towards the tenders, but really the restaurant has an obligation to do their best with all offerings and they didn't. Many restaurants are closing around the country, but most of them bring it upon themselves honestly. They work so hard via advertising to bring you into the restaurant only to fail at the delivery. Why should we return?
Slim Chickens currently operates in 33 states (+2) plus the international locations as noted below. They added one here in Colorado Springs (Falcon I think) to make 6 in Colorado.
---12/3/22 update
I hadn't intended on going back to Slim Chickens after last year's mediocre visit. But it occurred to me that it wasn't that long after the pandemic, and not everything was going smoothly. I should give it one more chance. Egging me on was Mrs. RJG who suddenly had a craving for chicken tenders. It's close by to where we live, so let's go for lunch.
Happy to say that this visit was far better. I had the crispy chicken sandwich with fries. The chicken was much - much - better than last time. Perfectly cooked with toasty bread (but not enough for Mrs. RJG) and pickles. Good size too - bigger than Chick Fil-A's for example. The fries were as good as last time. They offer an array of sauces, so I went with the "inferno" (of course I did). It's a very spicy, but thin, sauce. Still it was great to dip my fries in. Mrs. RJG went with 3 chicken tenders and fries. She loved them. And her dipping sauce of choice was the mango habanero which we both agreed was too sweet. So she dipped into my inferno sauce. They still charge extra for the sauces which I don't think is a good practice, but OK whatever. We each went with fountain drinks this time, and they have both Diet DP and Coke Zero - and they were actually carbonated with flavor. Another lost art I might add.
All in all, glad to have Slim Chickens back in the repertoire. Most assuredly we'll go back more than once a year given its close proximity.
As of this writing, Slim Chickens is in 31 states plus 11 locations in England and one at the Kuwait airport. They have 5 in Colorado (3 in the Denver area + 2 here in the Springs) and 29 in Texas. From our old territory of NE Tarrant there are 2 (Hurst and north Fort Worth). Looks like the NRH locale didn't make it.
--- original 3/13/21 review
Slim Chickens is a fast food chicken chain that first opened up in Fayetteville, Arkansas and has seen rapid expansion since, including an impressive international presence. They slipped in on us in NE Tarrant during our waning years there, but I never managed to get a posting up. They're new to the Springs area, having opened around the same time as the nearby In-N-Out, of which I'm sure they get some overflow traffic from.
Walking in, we have a very large and clean location. Very welcoming environment. They go for the same squeaky clean good kids as In-N-Out does for employees. In Texas, we tended to get chicken strip meals. I remember it quite good. On this visit, I decided to try a chicken club sandwich with "crispy" bacon, and substituted for cayenne ranch mayo instead of the regular mayo (there's an upcharge to do this - kind of lame). The flavor of the sandwich and chicken falls into the "nothing special" category. Have you ever noticed that many restaurants advertise crispy bacon, and rarely do they actually achieve that goal? This was the usual hard and mushy bacon. Worse is the chicken wasn't cooked right. It was rubbery. Also I got a "hand spun" chocolate shake. I don't know exactly what that means, but I suspect a machine shake with chocolate added, and stirred with a spoon. It was pretty bland as these things go. On the plus side is the fries were hot and tasty. And thank goodness I got the cayenne ranch dressing, as I used it to dip the fries in. It was the only item with much flavor.
OK, my curiosity is sated. Not as good as I remember, and not something I need to patronize often, if at all again. It's not bad... just kinda average honestly. Chick-Fil-A and Popeye's are still in the lead for chicken sandwiches from a large chain category.
5/4/17; 4/22/18; 3/13/21 (new entry); 12/3/22; 5/30/23
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