McDonald’s Isn’t Chickening Out from the Chicken Sandwich Wars

After so much fanfare surrounding Popeye’s and Chick-fil-A’s fried chicken sandwiches, people in the restaurant world have been watching other big-name competitors to see which brand will throw its hat in the ring next. Back in July, before the chicken sandwich wars had even started, McDonald’s franchisees were lobbying to get the brand to release a Southern-style fried chicken sandwich. According to CNBC, it looks like those franchisees made some headway—McDonald’s is testing a new Crispy Chicken Sandwich in Houston and Knoxville, Tennessee from Dec. 2 through Jan. 26. 

The sandwich features a fried chicken filet on a buttered potato roll with pickles... sound familiar? In August, McDonald’s announced it was bringing a whole slew of fried chicken sandwich variations on board, but the Crispy Chicken Sandwich is the first true Chick-fil-A competitor of the bunch. But why would McDonald’s—a giant among other QSRs with approximately 14,000 U.S. stores—feel the need to copycat Chick-fil-A when it already has the chicken chain beat in sales? Well, it worked for Popeye’s. CNBC reported that the Louisiana Kitchen has had its best quarter in decades and boasted same-store sales growth of over 10% since the launch of the infamous sandwich. 

Whether the McDonald’s sandwich will cause as much chaos (including shortages, online beef, offline beef and more) as the Popeye’s launch is yet to be seen, but this writer certainly hopes—for the sake of McDonald’s employees and franchisees everywhere—that it’s a little tamer. If anything, this launch could be a good PR move for the brand, which has seen dark days as of late following employee-driven lawsuits and the ousting of former CEO Steve Easterbrook. 

Read the full story in CNBC here.