Whatever you’re expecting this post to be based on the title…It isn’t. This gets dark and gritty. The type of writing that only true and visceral Americana can inspire.
I’m putting fingers to keyboard to convince the fried chicken buying public that any dollar not spent at Slim’s, is a dollar wasted. That’s because Slim Chicken’s is the best chicken in America. I don’t say world, only because there was probably a newly shipwrecked explorer on an island somewhere that hadn’t eaten in 8 days and he caught and cooked a chicken. That’s the only way I can conceive of a chicken tasting better than dipped in homemade Spicy BBQ.
I’m going to break Slim’s down for the uninitiated, but be warned:
Once initiated, there’s no turning back.
Let’s start with the Slim Chicken’s Mascot. They personify him and call him “Slim.”
I hate Slim.
It’s a super creepy concept to have a guitar-wielding Panama-hat wearing chicken plastered all over your store. I know other chicken places have a chicken as a logo/mascot, but Slim definitely crosses the line in the chicken coop that separates cutesy from cannibalistic.
Like a Blues obsessed Dahmer, he proclaims on his store signs that his chicken is “Life Changing.”
Like a BB King listening Dexter, he does “Everything by hand.”
Like a blood and soul sucking Hipster chicken, he listens to the Black Keys and tells everyone that he “Hate Listens” to them because they’re appropriating sound and soul that they just don’t understand.
Slim is a creepy-ass, industrial scale, serial killer chicken….And I still think his food is the best thing I’ve ever tasted. Let that cayenne ranch infused nugget marinade for a minute.
Not only is Slim’s the poultry equivalent of a windowless van with “Free Candy” spray painted in faded purple, he tries to kill humans too!
The underground Slim Chickens nutrition community puts a Slim’s plate at 1,500 calories, with quintuple your daily sodium intake. I say underground community because no official data exists. Exhibit A: This hysterical Facebook thread that lasts over a year.
I imagine Slim as the non-committal guy, with the commenters all being the girl who wants something more. She begins by saying how much she loves him, and asks him where exactly they stand. He says that they’re really close to figuring things out, but wants to take things slow.
She tries to give him space, but quickly realizes that she’s going to have to press the matter- and her questions get vaguely accusatory as they progress.
Finally, an exasperated Slim makes up an insanely ridiculous excuse involving actual federal agencies (What guy hasn’t) as to why they won’t work, but leaves it open ended just in case.
In a chicken coop somewhere Slim is shaking his head while he types with bloodstained feathers, wondering why on earth people would ask questions THEY CLEARLY DO NOT WANT THE ANSWERS TO. Unless your diet distinguishes between an 1,800 and 1,500 calorie lunch, you don’t need to know the nutrition info of a Slim’s Plate. You eat it and then pretend that it didn’t happen.
Like that weekend in Tampa.
Why were you there? Who were you with? What did you do?
You don’t know. And you never speak of it.
Knowing this, I still think that Slim Chickens could hold it’s own in a foodie Mexican standoff with Noma and that Jiro Sushi place in Japan.
Want to eat delicious chicken amid the deafening roar of traffic? Go to a Slims!
The first Slim’s location used to have a poster that stated the building had three failed restaurants in it before Slim’s (because Slim killed them one after one to get rent cheaper). For some inexplicable reason, the same reason one of the previous restaurants failed no doubt, half of the square footage of the restaurant was taken up by an outdoor seating area practically on top of Fayetteville’s busiest street.
Due to Slim being a sucker for nostalgia, most future locations have an outdoor seating area that adds the complex flavor notes of carbon emission and discarded garbage decomposing under the 100 degree Southern sun.
And yet….if I were forced to choose between $100 cash, and the chance to eat Slim’s that I have to pay for on their patio…I’d whip out an Andrew Jackson right then and there.
Which brings me to the final point. Slim’s isn’t cheap.
Sure- you start off with a Chick’s plate, and that doesn’t seem so bad at $7 whatever.
Once your tolerance grows though, you’ll be forking over $12, two to eight times a day. Goodbye tuition, goodbye utilities, and goodbye retirement. All Slim’s employees are former customers who faded into Slim’s fiscal ruin. Like Nazguls to Slim’s Sauron. One fried chicken to rule them all.
Even knowing that this food I’m about to order came from a creepy cannibal chicken, will undoubtedly kill me, and will ruthlessly bankrupt me while traffic zooms by…I gladly tell the chicken Ring Wraith behind the counter that yes- I would like the collectible plastic cup.
I’m not long for this world due to you and your fried fare. I’d like to leave something collectible for my family to remember me by.
Beware of Slims.
-Matt
