Chicken Coop – Plainwell

• 1175 M-89
• Plainwell, MI 49080
• (269) 685-6213
• No Known Website
• No Online Menu

Man, have I been craving fried chicken.  It’s been several weeks now and I haven’t been able to fill that craving.  As far as I’ve been able to find, there really isn’t a lot of great chicken places in the area.  Usually, I just go to the Chicken Coop, but there really isn’t one close anymore and when I would come home from work on Sunday nights, I didn’t pass anything that was open other than KFC.

I tried a few times to stop at the Chicken Coop in Plainwell, but they are closed on Sunday’s which left me craving chicken, but not wanting to drive any farther in to Kalamazoo than I had to.

Now that I’ve changed jobs, I actually get off at a decent time on Saturday nights.  Instead of making the trip from GR to Kalmazoo at midnight, I leave Grand Rapids around 7:00 so J and I can actually do things on Saturday’s instead of just rewinding SNL to the beginning and lay on the couch.

Neither of us slept very well Friday night, so we decided to spend this first free Saturday night on the couch catching up on shows we DVR’d this week.   Normally, we’d order a pizza, but I still had that chicken craving and told J I’d take a shot at actually finding the Plainwell Chicken Coop open. 

I’ve said this everytime I’ve written a review of a Chicken Coop.  I don’t understand the corporate structure, if there is one, and I don’t understand the affiliation between the different stores.  I know some are owned by the same people people and they all have similar menus, but there seems to be a different in the quality of the food.  I always surprise people when I say the South Westnedge Chicken Coop is my favorite, but they really did have the best chicken I’ve ever gotten from a Chicken Coop restaurant.

The Plainwell location is right off US-131 on M-89 near the Plainwell/Otsego border in front of Meijer.  I was really happy to see several cars in the parking lot and lined up at the drive-thru.  My chicken craving was finally going to be satisfied.

I hate drive thrus and it seems ironic that you’re too lazy to get out of your car to get fried chicken, so I went inside.  The store is set up with an order counter right as you walk in the door.  To the left is a pretty good sized dining room.  I didn’t really go in because I was grabbing chicken to take home.

There was an older couple in front of me when I got there who were telling the guy taking the order their life story and how they had a bad experience at a different Chicken Coop, but they decided to give it another shot.  Yeah, we’ve all had that same experience.

When they finally moved on, I stepped up to the counter and put in my order for the 12 piece combo.  That’s way too much food for us, but the only thing I like better than cold chicken is cold pizza, so I bought enough knowing that I would be eating leftovers.

For the two sides, I chose french fries for me and macaroni salad for J.  We also got six dinner rolls which come prepackaged in plastic bag so I’m sure they’re probably just food service rolls.

The price was a little over $21.  It sounds like a lot for chicken, but we really got a lot of food.  So much that it’s probably gonna get me three meals.

They had just dropped a batch of white meat into the fryer so they told me it was going to be about a ten minute wait.  I was fine with that…especially since it meant fresh chicken.  I just hung out in the doorway between the order counter and the dining room.  I really don’t think it even took the ten minutes they said it would before I was handed a large paper bag with my chicken and fries.  I grabbed a tub of macaroni salad out of the cooler and I was on my way home to spend a Saturday night with my wife.

We both sort of went straight for the sides.  The fries, which I did share with J, were very salty, but for some reason, I really liked that.  The fries are thin and crispy and for some reason, that salt really tasted good to me.  I polished off about half of the large bag before I even grabbed a piece of the chicken.

J took about half of the macaroni salad out of the container and put it on her plate.  She didn’t say anything about it, but she did finish what she took out and put the rest in the fridge for later so I guess that means it was at least ok.

Now the chicken.  I grabbed a breast and J took a wing.  We both sort of prefer white meat which makes us odd…I know.  It’s weird.  Anyway, the chicken was delicious.  It was much more like the South Westnedge store and nothing like the Portage location.  The breading was very crispy and very well adhered to the meat.  The meat itself was still very juicy and wasn’t slimy or off putting like bad chicken can be.  This stuff was delicious.

I’m very happy to know that the Plainwell Chicken Coop does chicken the way we like it.  Lazy nights at our house always become pizza nights, but now that I know the chicken is actually very good, I know I will be able to make a quick stop on my way home from Grand Rapids and find an alternative on those lazy Saturday nights.

Chicken Breast

Macaroni Salad