Krispy Krunchy Chicken (Portage)
1800 W. Milham AvenueFriday’s are usually my day for eating out. I mean, it’s payday!
My colleague and I had an early assignment in Battle Creek that day. I had meant to stop at Jack in the Box for lunch but I totally forgot about it.
We had to come back to Portage for our second assignment. It was a really quick stop near Portage City Hall. We were done in about twenty minutes then were heading back to our office downtown for the rest of the day.
I was still kind of hungry and while I probably could have just hit up a food truck at Bronson Park, I also wanted to grab some Pepsi. I decided I haven’t had gas station chicken in a while and there is a new-ish location of one of my favorite chicken chains in Portage.
We stopped at the C-Store Portage on Milham Avenue just to the east of Roanoke Street. This place was a Circle K for the longest time but it was just a convenience store and not a gas station. Like the rest of the convenience store only Circle K’s, this one lost that branding. Unlike the Oakland and Meredith locations though, this one stayed open but rebranded to C Store.
The store doesn’t look any different now than when it was a Circle K other than all of the Circle K branding and logos are gone. It’s still a tightly packed space with all of the convenience store staples. The C Store Portage branding looks close enough to Circle K you might not even notice if you aren’t paying attention.
The thing that has changed is the chicken joint squeezed in to the corner by the fountain drink machine. It’s actually kind of amazing how little space these Krispy Krunchy Chicken kiosks actually take up. There is not a lot of space there but they get it all in.
I did my usual here. I grabbed a four piece box which includes four tenders, a side, and a biscuit. The cost with a couple of Pepsi’s was right around $15. The meal is paid for at the counter for the convenience station, not at the chicken counter.
When I got back to the office, I actually started with the biscuit this time. The biscuits are always so hit or miss at Krispy Krunchy Chicken. If you get one that has been sitting out for a while, it’s hard as a rock. If you get a somewhat fresher one, they have a crispy outer crust that is covered in honey but they’re soft and airy on this inside. This one was of the latter kind. It was probably the best Krispy Krunchy Biscuit I’ve had in a while.
I picked the potato wedges as my side so I went for them next. Again, freshness makes all the difference here. Krispy Krunchy Chicken actually has some of the better gas station fried chicken wedges…even if you get some that have been sitting for a while. There are ridges in the potato that would probably do good to hang on to ketchup but I just think it gives the wedge more texture when you bite through them. These wedges had a really crispy exterior and that light, pillowy inside that good wedges have.
I saved the chicken for last because it’s my favorite part of the meal and it’s the part of the meal that doesn’t suffer if you wait. The tenders from Krispy Krunchy have a really crispy, flaky breading that gives each bite a really big crunch. There were only four pieces of chicken left under the warming lamps when I went to order so this had probably been sitting for a bit but the tenders were still really juicy and really tender. I didn’t ask for any sauce because I typically prefer tenders without. These don’t need any sauce. I still think Krispy Krunchy has some of the best gas station tenders around.
This stop at the C Store Portage Krispy Krunchy Chicken was by far the best experience I’ve had at a Krispy Krunchy in Kalamazoo. The other two places (Douglas and Lake) were fine and I’ve gone back to both but this one on Milham definitely had the freshest, most delicious of the three.
SW Michigan Dining 