Chicken Coop (Portage)
109 E. Centre AvenueSkipping out on the Friday night pizza once again.
A few weeks ago I ordered a pizza from Franco’s Italian Pizzeria in Portage for something to eat between my normal work shift and my Friday night overtime shift. I hadn’t eaten there in a really long time so I figured it was time to go back.
When I went to pick that pizza up, I realized there was another restaurant right next to it that I haven’t been to in a really long time. The thing about writing this blog, I’ve been doing it so long, some of my observations and opinions have become dated. Going back and revisiting some of these places seems like a good idea sometimes.
I was in the same boat this past Friday night. I had a little bit of time between my normal shift and my overtime shift. I was in Portage again. I remembered I made a mental note about that place next to Franco’s and this night seemed like as good as any.
That business is the Chicken Coop on the corner of Centre Avenue and South Westnedge Avenue. The small chicken joint has been a consistent presence on this corner for many years. It used to be part of a large chain that included restaurants owned by the same people in Paw Paw, Plainwell, Kalamazoo Township, and Watervliet but it appears this location in Portage is the only one left.
The last time I ate at this Chicken Coop was not long after we moved to Kalamazoo in 2010. I didn’t have a particularly favorable view of the place that time which is probably why I never went back. There was actually an unrelated Chicken Coop on Westnedge near where Midtown Fresh is now and I really liked that location. I’ve eaten and several other ones over the years and seemed to like those experiences so maybe we just hit this Portage one on a bad night and I’ve been wrong to have never been back in 15 years.
I walked in to the business around 6:00 on a Friday night and I immediately hit a wall of people. As I walked in the door, a woman in line, awfully rudely, told me the line was around the corner. I was barely in the door and looking at the menu that hangs above the counter in the fairly small order area right as you walk in. I told her I’d go to the back of the line in a second but I was looking at the menu at the moment.
The line extended much further into the dining room than I had hoped and I was just about ready to call it a day and go find something else but I thought, no, I’m already here and now I want chicken so I just stayed in line.
My only visit to this location was pretty quick so I didn’t even really remember they even had a dining room. It has a few dozen tables in a space that’s kind of dated and looks to me an awful lot like what I remember 80’s fast food places looking like. It’s a vibe. There’s nothing wrong with and it’s actually a pretty clean, inviting dining room. It just gave my flashbacks.
I’m almost 46 years old so I’m not a young person by a long shot, but I was the youngest person in this long line by a long shot. The reason the restaurant was so packed was because there was a home football game at nearby Portage Central and a lot of people were stopping in for dinner before heading over to the game. Chicken Coop runs a “Senior Special” that is two pieces of chicken, two small sides, and a small drink for $10. Literally everyone in line was ordering that.
I am not a senior…yet. Although I feel like it at work most days with my much younger colleagues, so I had to order something else.
I went back and forth on tenders, chicken dinners, and wing dinners before finally settling on the four piece chicken dinner. This, obviously, comes with four pieces of chicken plus two sides and a dinner roll. I had a drink in my car and I wasn’t going to dine in so I didn’t get one with the meal. The cost was right around $15. The guy at the cashier offered to bring it out to my car when it was ready but I told him I could just wait. They were pretty swamped and didn’t need to be trying to figure out what car I was in. It took about ten minutes for it to be bagged up and handed to me.
I headed over to my worksite and just ate on the hood of my car before going in. When I pulled the Styrofoam container out of the bag, it was bursting at the seams with food.
I moved the chicken out of the way so I could start with the fries. They were underneath the chicken in the box and separated with a piece of wax paper. The fries were frozen skin on fries with a pretty hefty salt seasoning. They also soaked up a little bit of extra grease from the chicken given them a little bit more flavor. I was pretty surprised by how many fries were in the bottom of the box. They were nothing super special but they were pretty tasty and a good start to the meal.
The next thing I grabbed was the chicken. It was a four piece meal so there was a wing, a breast, a leg, and a thigh. The reason I didn’t really like Chicken Coop the last time I was there is because the chicken was kind of greasy and the skin was really soft. This chicken was not like that. The skin was nice and crispy, the breading had a really great, kind of salty flavor, and the chicken was super juicy. All four pieces were actually really good and completely different from how I remember the chicken last time we ate here. This is the kind of fried chicken that’s just really hard to find anymore.
The other side that I ordered was the Mac & Cheese but there was no fork in the bag so I couldn’t eat it right away. That was actually find though because I was pretty stuffed from the fries and the chicken. I just set it aside and took it home to eat after my shift. The Mac & Cheese is very creamy with a thick, neon yellow cheese sauce. It’s a pretty standard Mac & Cheese. Tasty but common.
The last thing in the box was a dinner roll. It’s a mass produced roll out of a bag but it’s kind of dinner roll you expect with this kind of chicken dinner. I didn’t have a knife for butter either but I just kind of dipped the roll in the small butter container. It worked well enough.
I have memories of fried chicken dinners all the time from my childhood and almost none of them were from a fast food chain. Independent fried chicken places don’t seem to exist much anymore. Even this one has dwindled down to just one location. I know fried chicken isn’t the healthiest option out there but it’s so damn tasty. Places like the Chicken Coop are getting rarer and rarer. I, obviously, had a much better experience than I did last time I ate there (15 years ago) but that’s also a reminder of how a place usually only gets one chance to make a first impression. I get most of my chicken from supermarkets nowadays. A trip to the Chicken Coop won’t be out of the question in the future.
SW Michigan Dining 