First Look at Slim Chickens

Slim Chickens is best described as a fast-casual restaurant. You order at the counter and then the food is brought out to your table. I brought some family members out to their soft opening over the weekend to try out their foods and check out the digs.

Inside the place is beautifully built. It’s a free standing building that was constructed specifically for Slim Chickens. The front end of the building is nearly all windows that faces Greenwich. It’s nice as it really opens up the building more and doesn’t make you feel like you’re stuck inside the whole time. There’s plenty of seating for everyone from booths to tables and a patio out front when Mother Nature decides to stop being a debbie downer on the weather here.

But I know all of you are wondering about the more important aspect of this: the food so we will get to that now. All the food is made to order. You can order the chicken breaded or grilled, It can be tossed with the sauce or on the side. Slim Chickens caters to what your needs are. Here’s the menu and here’s what we ordered:

All the meals we ordered were served with Texas Toast, a medium drink and fries. You are allowed to swap out fries with other sides like the fried items seen above or mac & cheese, coleslaw, or potato salad. Keep in mind that the fried items like okra, mushrooms and pickles do come with an additional charge. Also keep in mind……the fried mushrooms are amazing. My family doesn’t like mushrooms so I had to take one for the team and eat them all by myself. A sacrifice I was willing to make.

I come from a family who has a long history of being condiment connoisseurs. If you’re like us, Slim Chickens is the place for you. They have 16 different signature sauces to choose from. We tried a few of them and plan on eventually knocking them all out. But for the ones we sampled, Inferno was hands down our favorite. It was like buffalo sauce but with real flavor and good heat.

The first menu item that will likely grab all the attention is the chicken and waffles. This is a meal that will please any child and most adults. Many restaurants serve their waffles a different style. At Slim Chickens, their waffles are slightly softer. The waffles end up being like a foam mattress topper that conforms to the chicken on top. They aren’t the harder waffles with crunch found at some other places. My personal preference is the soft, lighter ones. It was my niece’s first experience with chicken and waffles and now won’t be her last.

While that was the favorite at the table, the rest of the food was great as well. The breading on the chicken didn’t detract from the juiciness of the chicken. It was a clean taste that wasn’t greasy at all which sometimes happens with fried foods. The fries were pretty good as well especially with the seasoning they sprinkle over them. The wings are about the size of what you can get at Buffalo Wild Wings but here there’s more meat on them.

We ended our meal on a couple of their jarred desserts.

They’ll always have a few different options on hand. Let us tell you that the Strawberry Cheesecake is a real winner.

We’ve been to many soft openings for our first looks and sometimes there are hiccups and sometimes there aren’t. Slim Chickens didn’t have any. The staff was extremely courteous which is no surprise since they are on their best behavior with ownership looking on. But one thing we noticed is the staff is not filled with a bunch of first time employees. They had people of all ages which was nice because you could tell the employees there treated their job as their main source of income. They weren’t mostly high school students who used it as play money with their parents being their first source of income. I only say this because I had some nice discussions with members of their staff as they brought the food out to us. And that’s also not to say high school students can’t do well on their first job.

I brought out some family members who are hard to please when dining out and they all said they would come back which is truly remarkable praise from them.

With all that said, Slim Chickens has a great chance of being a success story at Regency Lakes. In an area that is quickly becoming a food haven, there aren’t any options in that are of town that come to mind that competes with Slim Chickens. If this one can succeed, look for additional locations possibly near New Market and perhaps Derby. We look forward to going back when they open. Give them a try yourself.

Happy Dining,
Eddy