The Best Chicken You Can Find At A Burger Chain, According To Yelp

A greasy fast-food burger will always reign supreme as the tastiest quick bite money can buy in my book, but I've become somewhat of an outlier in that regard. Many Americans are on a chicken fix these days. That has inspired some iconic restaurants to pivot and offer customers what they want, impeccably illustrated by the thunderous applause that ensued after the McDonald's Snack Wrap made its triumphant return. Yet, the Golden Arches aside, how good can a chicken sandwich be when it comes from an establishment that specializes in cooking ground beef to perfection? Apparently, pretty darn great, if you're talking specifically about Shake Shack.

With businesses like KFC dominating the fried fowl game for years, it may come as a surprise to some folks to discover that a burger haunt like Shake Shack would be able to topple their hegemony over the market. Yet, if almost 10,000 Yelp reviews referencing chicken are to be believed, that's exactly what has occurred. As reported by Yahoo! Creators, Affordable Seating did a deep dive into reviews posted about the largest fast-food chains in America's biggest cities and discovered that only one restaurant got a higher rating for its chicken sandwich than Shake Shack.

America's favorite chicken sandwich comes from Chick-fil-A, which shouldn't be shocking given that it ups the ante by serving a beloved stellar sauce with every meal. But it barely edged out Shake Shack's dish, dubbed the Chicken Shack, to remain fast food's king of poultry. That put fried chicken joints across the country on notice.

That a burger chain like Shake Shack was able to beat out restaurants famous for their fried chicken, including KFC, Popeye's, and Raising Cane's, says something about the fast-food industry as a whole. Companies that once relied on specializing in poultry to gain a niche foothold in the food industry are no longer guaranteed to sell more bird than the burger joint down the road. Customers will go where their taste buds lead them, and if that means stopping into a burger chain for the best chicken sandwich they can get their hands on, that's exactly what they will do.

However, a burger chain just slapping a chicken sandwich on the menu in an attempt to be on trend won't cut it. Consumers aren't fooled by marketing campaigns designed to make a new menu item seem like the best thing since sliced bread when the taste of that dish doesn't meet expectations. And given how fast-food prices have steeply risen over the last few years, people are even more judgmental about the perceived value they get when visiting a fast-food restaurant.

Shake Shack's Chicken Shack isn't anything special on paper. A fried chicken breast topped with lettuce, tomato, and a buttermilk herb mayo served on a potato bun is all it takes to make a meal that folks adore. But the devil is in the details, and whatever Shake Shack is doing behind the scenes to convince customers that they are better off ordering a chicken sandwich from a burger joint than a restaurant that specializes in frying poultry is something its competitors would do well to emulate.