Date Tested: October 2nd, 2025

Competitors: Chick-fil-A, Krispy Krunchy Chicken, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Popeyes, Wingstop, Canes

The humble chicken tender. You take a chicken tenderloin (or more likely a piece of chicken breast) and coat it in flour and spices because flour and spices stick to chicken. Then you coat that in egg because egg sticks to flour. Then back in the flour (or panko if you know what’s good for you) to bulk up. Easy to do, hard to do well. Really the only way to change the recipe is what spices you use. Beyond that, the only influences on taste are quality of ingredients and care taken, which makes tenders a great baseline to judge a kitchen.

Tragically, chicken tenders have come to be seen as little more than vehicles for barbecue sauce or ranch – a telltale sign of civilizational decline. It’s not unlike the ancient Romans, who began dunking their once-proud Lucanian spicy pork sausages into honey-garum to mask the slipping quality of their fare, just before the Visigoths arrived at the gates. When the peasant food starts slipping, the institutions of the nation-state are never far behind.

But this chicken tender review is not the place for that discussion.

Three groups of reviewers each picked up the “basic” chicken tender meal from their assigned restaurants to keep temperatures as consistent as possible. We then met at a central location to taste and compare. This setup inevitably introduced some variation in the oh-so-important time-to-mouth variable. In poultry circles, this is of course known as the Critical Crisp Window. Some tenders were tried first, others after they’d cooled a bit more, but simultaneous testing felt essential, and that trade-off was deemed worth it.

These tenders SUCKED. Not a single one scored even a “pretty good” from me. And that tender, for me, was Chick-fil-A, my ancient and homophobic corporate enemy. But I must admit, it was a tasty tender. Good breading and tender, juicy chicken. I’m still not sure if I like it, but I may have to rethink my antipathy. We had unbelievably poor showings from a variety of chicken mainstays: KFC has shut down all locations in a metro area of over 200,000, so the most famous chicken place in the world was not included in this test. Surely not a good sign for the Colonel. Cane’s, my old flame. My light on the hill. Once an S tier fast food establishment, gave a performance so lukewarm that I actually gave the edge to CFA. The incredible seasoning and tenders I usually expect had their legs cut out from wet fries and oily breading. I had a big tendon in my tender, which obviously we don’t want to see, but does mark this as an actual tenderloin, a claim I don’t think many others on this list can make.

And Popeyes. Adjectives do not exist to describe how awful this was. Never in my years of taste tests, or even just eating, have I seen an item or location receive unanimous 1/7 reviews. It was actually inedible. Any more than a few ounces would have made someone sick. It was as if they bought some other chicken place’s used fry oil to save money. It tasted like licking the bottom of a McDonald’s dumpster. You could light one of these tenders on fire, and it would probably burn for two weeks. Imagine you see a 1956 Ford tractor in a field – long since abandoned. It’s once baby blue body is faded and rusted. Ivy threatens to swallow the rear, while a maple tree has begun to push through the engine bay. You carefully slice a 2 by 4 inch strip from the rear tire. Behind it, you find a vintage can of Conoco 15W30 motor oil that a homeless man has clearly been using as a commode. You put the can over a fire and get it rollin’. As described above, you flour-egg-panko your slice of tire and apply your signature spice blend. You fry it up. You’ve now made a 2 out of 7 chicken tender. Popeyes managed a 1 out of 7.

Dave’s was fine.

Wingstop tasted like it was straight out of the microwave. I truly believe it is literally sourced from the Tyson Anytizer factory. Their ranch almost makes up for it, though.

Krispy Krunchy Chicken was the wild card. A local chain that earns surprisingly strong reviews given its unassuming look. Their main location was closed, so I ended up at a second one, tucked inside a gas station across town. The place was organized like a downtown European grocery store – aisles as wide as my shoulders and goods overflowing from every shelf. I spent most of my wait sidestepping down narrow aisles like a sliding block puzzle trying to get out of the way of my fellow patrons. They were out of tenders, unfortunately, so I settled for a few thighs and figured, oh well. Despite all this, they were shockingly good. Easily the best-tasting and best-cooked chicken of the bunch. Technically, it wasn’t a fair comparison since it wasn’t tenders, but still… I’ll be back to try the tendies.

What more is there to say? Chick-fil-A and Dave’s tied for highest group average. Popeye’s was bio-waste. The rest, meh. With the price of Cane’s shooting ever upward, another showing like this will be my last time there. The main takeaway here is that this town is in dire need of a chicken place that gives a cluck. If the best in class is Chick-fil-A, you’ve got some major issues.