Chicken n Things — Local services in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

As a professional salesperson, I know a little secret: what truly sets a company apart isn’t how well they do things when everything’s going right, but how they handle it when something goes wrong. Chicken N Things is a textbook example of how to turn a slip-up into a gold-star moment.

Let’s get the basics out of the way: the meat was top quality, the prices were excellent, and I’ll absolutely order again. But what really stood out was their service—particularly after things went a bit sideways.

Now, full disclosure: I may not have been the easiest customer. I opted to pick up my order from Penrose, which, in hindsight, is more of a “locals-only” kind of service, not the main gig. I turned up around 3pm on a Friday, two hours after my pick-up email arrived, only to find the place locked up tight and the staff waving goodbye to the weekend.

As you can imagine, I was mildly irked. (As a redhead—rage could basically be a hobby.) The pick-up info wasn’t clear on the website or in the confirmation email, and I was left stewing in my car, worrying my fresh chicken would sit lonely and unloved all weekend. I fired off an email—slightly spicy, but still within the boundaries of decency.

Then—miracle of miracles—I got a phone call. Not an auto-reply. Not a “we’ll get back to you Monday.” A real, live phone call from the owner. He was calm, helpful, and focused on getting it sorted. And he did. They made sure my package was held and fresh chicken was added for Monday pick-up. When I returned, the staff were friendly, the packaging was excellent, and the meat was just as fresh as promised.

So yes—I’ll be back. The business is local, the specials are great, and the quality is top notch.

Will I pick up again? Honestly, maybe. I’d love to do weekly $60 fresh orders, but the uncertainty makes a $100 fortnightly delivery tempting. My one suggestion: please add clearer pick-up instructions on the website, and confirm the pick-up window in the email once the order is ready. Until then, I’ll be placing pick-ups earlier in the week… just in case the redhead in me wants to make...

These guys are really great with the quality of their meat and with their cold packaging and promptness of delivery. I love that they will take back the ice packs and reuse them if you leave them out that’s brilliant. We are rural and we are still able to receive usually next day free delivery. It’s made my life so much easier. Their pet mince is high quality as opposed to certain butchers chain stores who dump uncooked sausages into theirs which means the pet mince needs to be cooked because it’s got raw flour in it and flavourings and potentially msg which is indigestible to dogs, it’s just so awful and unhealthy, and they don’t say “needs to be cooked”. I don’t understand why people don’t care about pets but these guys do. Anyone who sells high quality pet products for an affordable rate gets my entire meat order for the week because I’m not going to two meat shops. This is a seemingly silly review about pet mince but the bigger point here is many retailers don’t realise people’s pets dictate where a lot of people shop so when you keep animal products low and have a wide range of things for pets you end up getting all of the person’s money because it’s convenient to shop at one place for pets and people. For instance I only shop at supermarkets that stock the biscuits my cats like. So that’s my entire supermarket budget each week based on the availability of one item. The power of pets in retail. My only wish is chicken and things would stock MORE animal products like soft pork bones and brisket bones etc for dogs. If you do I haven’t been able to find them yet on your site because you don’t have a dedicated pet food category, it would be cool if you did. Also if you had chicken mince with bone in it. You could partially rival “raw essentials” and the other boutique pet food meat suppliers if you wanted to create more pet products,...

Alot of the meat is substandard as I got boneless skinless chicken breast & was just a mass of fat and meat(looked like roadkill), mostly frozen stuff, some crumbed/battered chicken products were like chewing on rubber, marinated chicken has minimal mariade & taste, a mince that smelt real bad, my daughter just got a rolled roast and the entire center was a mass of fat. The staff is extremely rude with really bad attitudes not only on the phone but in person. I called for a couple items & asked when might be in stock & was very rudely told 'YES WE DO HAVE IN STOCK' so I said it's not on your website to which she says ' WELL THEN WE DONT HAVE'. They are cheapish for a reason... QUALITY & CUSTOMER SERVICE. To be fair we only buy 2 items from them now & that's because they come SEALED from another supplier. Be CAUTIOUS ⚠️ of what you buy as my other family members were sick on the 1st...