Many would have to wonder why am I writing a blog about food being fresh at a fast food restaurant. Stale food at places has been one of my biggest gripes about going to fast food places, but my experience yesterday at KFC was quite interesting.

Every single Tuesday after work, I get fast food at KFC (those on my twitter followers should know that). KFC definitely has my favorite fast food and is the place I go to the most whenever I eat out. 99.999999% of the time I order popcorn chicken with potato wedges and a Pepsi (normally the #13 combo).

Yesterday I went to KFC ordering a large popcorn chicken (I don't order a full meal sometimes if I'm going to take it home and not that hungry). It initially took me a while to order all because there was no employee standing at the register (the manager yelled to get someone there since there was a long line forming behind me). Just as they were about to prepare my order, the manager (or district manager) does it himself. As he tried putting the popcorn chicken in the cup, his response was "this popcorn chicken in no good". He told an employee to go make fresh popcorn chicken. He asked me if I'd mind waiting, which I said no (because I love fresh popcorn chicken), so he gave me a free drink while waiting and said it would be 5 minutes. Once the popcorn chicken was done, he apologized about the wait and said the chicken should be nice and fresh (along with tasting good). I thanked the manager telling him how much I like fresh popcorn chicken and how normally they give me popcorn chicken that has been sitting out for several hours (tasting all dry, hard, and not very good). He told me they are NOT suppose to be doing that and the chicken should be fresh. I was just so glad to finally see a manager actually care about the quality of chicken instead of just giving out whatever they had (no matter how long it has been sitting out).

I'll just say that as much as I love the popcorn chicken combo, I'd roughly say 25% of the time it does not taste that great (75% of the time it tastes great). 25% of the time its because the wedges are ice cold or green inside, 25% of the time it's because they ran out of the sweet stuff in the Pepsi fountain drink, but 50% of the time I get rock solid popcorn chicken. I have learned all throughout my area which KFCs serve the best chicken. A few locations I went to, not ONCE has the chicken tasted like it wasn't fresh. Part of the reason I didn't order potato wedges at my nearest location is because it has a LONG history of the wedges not being fresh, along with popcorn chicken not being fresh at times (but I can deal with that more than other food not being right). Some tell me that I should just go to Popeyes or something when the chicken isn't fresh. At Popeyes, I'd say I had a bit more luck with their chicken being fresh (not by much), but rarely if ever are their fries fresh unfortunately. I had too many issues with a certain KFC (in a somewhat bad area) messing up my order. Regardless, I still love Popeyes too, since I just love my popcorn chicken, chicken strips, breast meat friend chicken, etc.

Not just KFC have I dealt with food not being fresh. When it comes to any fast food, I prefer going when they first open, around lunch time, or dinner time. I go at those times because normally it's pretty busy and they are cooking the food fresh. If I go around 2-4pm, the food is normally stale. I had times at McDonald's/Burger King/Arby's (curly fries especially) didn't taste fresh. Sometimes I feel I wasted my money when my fries aren't fresh, so normally I just cook my own at home. Back in college I use to get the Arby's Chicken fingers and curly fries every Tuesday for lunch (until they changed their chicken to not being as good, so I stopped eating there all together). I was ALWAYS happy when they were cooking my curly fries or chicken fingers fresh. A few employees who knew me there made sure it was fresh for me (along with always giving me the coupon price even if I didn't have it). Outside of fries, anything else I get at Burger King is fresh enough. I haven't eaten at McDonald's for a while so I can speak about their quality much (I'm in the mood for some right now when thinking about it).

Funny because when I brought up the KFC story to co-workers today. Many agreed about wanting fresh fried chicken. One said he won't let them serve him stale chicken that has been sitting out for a while.

Well, that's all I had to say about fast food being fresh. I just love my fast food fresh whenever possible. Sometimes I don't get lucky unfortunately, which can ruin the day a little. However, that's what I get for being cheap instead of paying to go out to a real restaurant.

Anyone else happy to wait at fast food places if their food is getting served fresh?