Chicken Guy! (Mt. Pleasant)
6800 Soaring Eagle BoulevardIf you’re thinking to yourself, is he every home? The answer is, it sure doesn’t feel like it.
Another year. Another trip to Mackinac Island for work.
We don’t stay on Mackinac Island though. Even with the obnoxious ferry prices, it’s still a lot cheaper to stay in Mackinaw City and commute the three days we need to go over to the Island.
In the past, I’ve always gone up on Memorial Day and kind of taken my time. My colleague said we didn’t have anything scheduled on Tuesday this year so there was no need to rush. I still needed to go to the Island for a while but there was nothing scheduled so I could take my time.
I left Kalamazoo after getting B on the school bus around 8:30. I had to make a stop in Grand Rapids to pick up some gear then I headed towards the Straits of Mackinac.
I don’t know why, but my GPS took me across the state to Mt. Pleasant this year. As soon as I figured out where I was heading, I knew there was some place I wanted to stop for lunch.
Chicken Guy! chain of quick service chicken restaurants from Guy Fieri and Robert Earl (the man behind Planet Hollywood). The restaurants are about a dozen restaurants and most look to be in food court or entertainment venue settings. There was a stand alone store in Livonia and a plan to open 20 stores in Michigan but that seems to have gone away when the store on Plymouth Road closed last summer.
There is one Chicken Guy! left in Michigan. It’s at Soaring Eagle Casino in Chippewa Township east of Mt. Pleasant. You park in the main parking areas then head in to the casino just like you would to do some gambling.
I’m not a casino person. I don’t like gambling and I’ve never really liked the whole casino aesthetic. It’s better now that most places don’t allow smoking but my mission here was chicken and that was it. In and out.
I was in Mt. Pleasant a few years ago for work on Thanksgiving Day. There wasn’t much open in town but the casino was open. I stopped in for a quick dinner at Legend’s Diner. That’s no longer there. In fact, when I stopped in that day, I saw signs for a new food court coming. That new “Food District” is where you can find Chicken Guy! along with a pizza place, a burrito joint, and a sandwich shop.
Chicken Guy! is the first thing you see when you walk in to what looks like a mall food court. Each of the different restaurants has their own order counter that is separated from the dining room by a half wall.
I’m one of those people that knows what I want when I walk up to order. The guys in front of me were not. They were the type of guys that like to ask a lot of questions. I wasn’t in a super big hurry but I do tend to get impatient waiting on people who think the kid taking their order has an opinion on the food they’re about to serve you. It’s a paycheck man.
I put in an order for the Buffalo Mac ‘n Cheese Sandwich and made it a combo getting fries and a Pepsi Zero for right around $20. I was given one of those buzzer things to let me know when my order was ready.
It took a little less than ten minutes for the buzzer to go off. I grabbed my bag of food and just headed to the dining area. Again, it’s really reminiscent of a mall food court. It was still pretty early in the day so there were only a couple of people taking a break from gambling to find lunch.
I pulled the fries out of the bag first. These are frozen skin on fries with a “signature” fry seasoning. The seasoning was laid on pretty thick which gave the fries a little bit of flavor. Otherwise, they were simple fries that just compliment the sandwich.
The Buffalo Mac ‘n Cheese sandwich is quite a creation. Each of the sandwiches come with two fried (or grilled) chicken breast patties. This one is dipped in Buffalo sauce then topped with mac ‘n cheese and smoked bacon and garlic parm sauce. The mac ‘n cheese really dominated the flavor of this sandwich. The chicken is really crispy and that’s the main texture but there isn’t a lot of flavor that comes through with it. I probably should have just ordered tenders so I could taste the chicken. Between the mac and the bacon, the chicken was all but drowned out. It was still a really delicious sandwich. I would absolutely order it again. It just wasn’t super noticeable that there were two chicken patties underneath the mound of mac ‘n cheese.
This was a good little side quest. I was really curious when I saw the sign two years ago that this place was coming but I didn’t know when I’d be back in Mt. Pleasant…it’s not a place I go often. When I realized my GPS was taking me around Mt. Pleasant to get to Mackinac Island, I decided a detour was necessary. I’m glad I went slightly out of my way. I’m not sure Chicken Guy! is a place I would stop at in a shopping center but I really like it in this food court setting.
SW Michigan Dining 
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