Menu Run · Popeyes
Yes, the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich Is Still Good
Six years after the chicken sandwich that broke the internet, three visits to see whether it holds up. Verdict: still the best national chicken sandwich in fast food.
You remember the summer of 2019, when the Popeyes chicken sandwich broke the internet, sold out chain-wide, and turned into a meme about American consumer behaviour and the sociology of viral drive-thru phenomena. It has now been six years. I went back to see whether the sandwich still deserves the reputation.
What I ordered, three times
Classic chicken sandwich, no substitutions, no add-ons. $5.49 at all three locations I visited (one Nashville, one Franklin, one delivery through the Popeyes app). I did not order the spicy variant this round because I wanted to test the reference item as consistently as possible.
The sandwich itself
The Popeyes chicken sandwich remains the reference standard for the fast-food fried-chicken-sandwich category. The batter has the kind of shatter-crunch that most competitors have tried and failed to reproduce. The pickle brine on the chicken shows up in the flavour without dominating it. The mayonnaise (or spicy Cajun mayo, if you go that route) is applied at exactly the right rate. And the brioche bun — much-copied, still not equalled — is buttery, structural and toasted just enough to hold up through the last bite.
What the competition looks like now
McDonald's introduced its own crispy chicken sandwich program in 2021. Chick-fil-A still holds the fresh, non-battered category. Burger King has iterated on their Ch'King. Wendy's has a competent classic entry. Popeyes still wins the category — not by a huge margin, but by a real one. The batter is better than everyone else's batter, and the sandwich has held up to time better than most people (including me) expected in 2019.
The verdict
Yes, order it. This is not a nostalgia purchase. The Popeyes chicken sandwich is still the best national fast-food chicken sandwich in the summer of 2026.
Related: my week-long Arby's menu run for a very different chicken-sandwich-adjacent verdict.