The Chick-fil-a Knock-Off Sandwich Review

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or simply aren’t a fast food degenerate), you’ve noticed the recent chicken sandwich trend among fast-food restaurants. More and more of them have adopted the “classic” style of sandwich as a part of their menus in an obvious attempt to earn market share in a category that is clearly dominated by Chick-fil-a. Today, I purchased all of the “classic” chicken sandwiches along with my friend, colleague, and fellow fast-food connoisseur in order to compare and contrast them between eachother.

Among the sandwiches being considered are those from McDonald’s, KFC, Popeye’s and Burger King. For a sandwich to be considered a “Chick-fil-a knock-off”, we determined that it must meet the following criteria:

• It consists of a singular chicken patty.
• The only topping on the sandwich is pickles.
• It’s served in an aluminum-paper bag.
• An equivalent spicy and or deluxe version is also offered.

Wendy’s recently released a new “classic” chicken sandwich of their own, and although it does have pickles, it contains additional toppings and doesn’t offer a spicy equivalent. For that reason, it can not be considered a true “Chick-fil-a knock-off”.

Now, before we progress any further, it should be noted that these restaurants did indeed mimic Chick-fil-a’s sandwich intentionally. By stating this, I am in no way declaring that these restaurants are somehow “lesser” because of their obvious imitation. After all, what good business wouldn’t try to imitate their competitor’s success?

Objectively speaking, Popeye’s sandwich launch was a great success. Their overall sales increased by 20% the year they released the sandwich. This success is exactly what motivated McDonald’s, KFC, and Burger King to follow suit.

Each sandwich was compared within four simple categories: The price, bun, pickles, and chicken. As a reference point, Chick-fil-a’s sandwich is priced at $4.39. Let it also be known that none of these sandwiches are “bad”.

Without further ado, here’s our comparison.

McDonald’s — $4.99

Among all the sandwiches we tried, McDonald’s, without a doubt most closely resembled the original Chick-fil-a sandwich in terms of taste. We came to the conclusion that, if you were to blindly taste the McDonald’s sandwich and were told that it was Chick-fil-a, you wouldn’t notice any difference.

What was noticeable, however, was the appearance. Both of the sandwiches we purchased appeared darker in tone and included a lighter stripe on the bun. The dark appearance could simply mean that the location we purchased from needed to change their cooking oil. So, perhaps the lighter strip across the bun was the only intentional characteristic separating its appearance from that of Chick-fil-a’s.

Additionally, we concluded that $4.99 is pushing it for a chicken sandwich, especially when you can get almost 4 McChicken’s from the exact same restaurant for the same price. Even ordering the original chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-a makes more sense economically.

Burger King — $4.99

Right away, what stood out about this sandwich was it’s presentation. Burger King went out of their way to mimic a sort of “unboxing” experience by wrapping the entire sandwich in paper in addition to placing it in a standard foil-paper bag.

The bun itself was another differentiator as it was noticeably larger and “puffier” than the other sandwiches. However, this is only one way it contributed to being the biggest sandwich of the 4…

The BK sandwich was the biggest, but it also weighed the most, and not simply because of the bun or extra wrapping they included; the actual chicken was the biggest of the 4 sandwiches. However, the size of the chicken was inconsistent across the bun. You could bite one side of the bun and barely get any chicken, while biting on the other side would have almost too much chicken.

Again $4.99 is pushing it for a chicken sandwich, but compared to the McDonald’s sandwich, this ever so slightly more economical simply because you get more food for the price.

KFC — $3.99

Following Chick-fil-a’s standard, all of the sandwiches had exactly 2 pickles…but not KFC. Of the 2 sandwiches we purchased, one of them had 4 pickles while the other had 3. Between the two of them, yes, the number of pickles was inconsistent, but it was also consistently more than the other sandwiches, which is interesting to note.

Contrasting what we noticed about the BK sandwich, the KFC sandwich had the most consistent chicken size across the entire bun (it was the most circular).

Their chicken also had the most unique taste and appearance. The BK and Popeye’s sandwich tasted very similar, and the McDonald’s sandwich mirrored Chick-fil-a’s almost perfectly. KFC, however, was in a category of it’s own. However, for the sake of comparison, KFC’s chicken was sort of a mix between McDonald’s and BK/Popeye’s. Popeye’s and BK were much crispier than the Chick-fil-a original, but KFC was a happy medium between the two.

Popeye’s — $3.99

The Popeye’s sandwich was very similar in taste and appearance to the one from Burger King. Both the bun and the chicken were sizable, although not quite as big BK’s.

One differentiator is that Popeye’s sandwich easily had the largest pickles out of all the sandwiches. Most of the pickles we tried were small and or soggy (even Chick-fil-a has this issue), so it was refreshing to try pickles that stood out in a positive way.

Being $1 cheaper than Burger King’s sandwich, we concluded that the Popeye’s sandwich is a better value between the two, since they are so similar.

Conclusion & Rankings

The goal of this piece isn’t necessarily to declare which of the 4 sandwiches is the “best Chick-fil-a knock off”, but still, it seems odd not to try and rank them at least from a subjective point of view.

Most similar to Chick-fil-a

1. McDonald’s
2. KFC
3. Popeye’s
4. Burger King

Best overall chicken-sandwich (based on value & flavor)

1. KFC
2. Popeye’s
3. McDonald’s
4. Burger King

Now, I can die happy knowing that I have accomplished what God put me on this earth to do. This entire article is a joke, but if anyone out there has had these sandwiches, I’d be curious to hear your take. : )