Chicken Salad Chick — Restaurant in Huntsville

Meh, just meh.

I have sampled chicken salad around the world. From Whole Foods, to Atlanta Bread Company, to some local haunts. It seems exceedingly basic, just throw together some chicken, mayo, and celery, and voila. However, while each of these offers a slightly unique take on simple staple, the "Southern hospitality" environment and friendly staff of Chicken Salad Chick cannot mask their stunningly mediocre product.

I ordered the Carol's Blend, touted as their specialty, on croissant. At first bite I noticed the texture was very runny. Chicken Salad Chick goes heavy on the mayo, and in doing so creates a wet and almost custard-like chicken salad. Additionally their chicken is very finely minced--forget about getting any solid bites of chicken, or seeing anything resembling a fresh veggie in this blend. While this can be overlooked, the blandness cannot be ignored. Carol's Blend has no unique flavors at all. While others may add honey, lemon, even curry powder to give their salad a boost, Carol's Blend is flat, offering only a few bright notes (again stratified by mayo), and a slight aftertaste of celery.

Their croissant also carries the texture of soft white bread. A true croissant, of the Parisian ilk, should be buttery and crusty, with layers of crunchiness on the outside, hiding a soft, almost gooey interior. Chicken Salad Chick's are reminiscent of a Wonderbread white hot dog bun--flat and devoid of texture and flavor.

Additionally, Chicken Salad Chick is hugely overpriced for bland fast food. A sandwich, drink and chips total $9.89, pricing them at least 30-40% higher than any nearby competition. Overall, you can do better elsewhere. Try Zoe's kitchen, Whole Foods, or Atlanta Bread Company for better food, served just as quickly, at a lower...

My wife brought me a "buffalo chicken" style croissant sandwich from here today for my lunch while I was at work. The sandwich was decent, and everything tasted pretty fresh.

HOWEVER, the sandwich was horribly center-loaded. By "center-loaded", I mean all the chicken was in the center of the croissant, with hardly anything towards the ends. This created a threefold problem:

The bites towards the end of each half became pretty bland. The initial bites of each half were tasty.

With a huge wad of chicken salad in the middle of the sandwich, the first bites (while tasty), caused the rest of the chicken salad to squirt out and make a mess - something not really desirable while trying to eat lunch in an office environment.

As others have stated, the chicken salad here tends to run a bit on the more liquid end of the spectrum. While I have no real issue with this in of itself, the problem with this kind of chicken salad is that moisture and sandwich bread don't exactly mix - the bread has a tendency to dissolve. With these sandwiches being served on delicate croissant rolls, the bottom half dissolves pretty quickly and exacerbates the mess problem from item #2.

All in all, some very decent food however the center-loaded sandwich with dissolving bread makes me deduct a star (quick fixes to these would be to spread out the chicken salad better and apply a thin layer of mayo on the bottom slice of bread to act as a moisture barrier and preserve the structural integrity of...

Pro: I absolutely love eating here, always get extra to take home with me, it's my very favorite place to eat. Con: Chose CSC for Mother's Day. We knew we needed to get there early to get some, because you know they don't EVER make enough to even last for the whole day...EVER!!! Got there about 2:30-3 and this sign was on the door, "Chicken Salad Has Sold Out Due To Mother's Day Demand" Imagine working yourself up for days to get what you love for your Mother's Day meal, only to find out they didn't even make extra, to TRY and cover Mother's Day meals, let alone to last til closing. I wonder, do they not get sales sheets to judge how much to make the next day? Or during peak times, or what sales are to increase their product for demand? Because just for once, I'd love to go here to eat, confident that I will be able to get my favorite food and not walk in to signs that they are out. Maybe more training on how to increase production per sales. Or better yet, why not make more when it's close to running out so everyone gets some, not just noon...