Clear & Obvious: Settling the Chick-Fil-A vs. Popeyes debate

“Clear & Obvious” is a new kind of sort of vertical/brand/excuse for us to make fun of the deeply strange and wonderful world of MLS, except when we dive into fast food battles like this one. Please take it very seriously.

Popeyes, a chicken restaurant founded in 1972, finally discovered that a boneless chicken breast placed between two buns might actually make money (despite the fact that an Atlanta company beat Popeyes to it 8 years before Popeyes was even founded) and released its chicken sandwich this past week. And there have been various debates about whether the one Popeyes sells is better than the one Chick-Fil-A sells. Everyone’s jumping in:

Harry Lyles Jr., a writer for the mothership and based here in good old ATL, set the entire Internet on fire with his take (some would say a hot take, at that) on Popeyes’ newest menu item:

You’ve...probably heard people say it’s better than Chick-fil-A’s. As somebody who would probably vomit if I saw how much money I’ve spent at Chick-fil-A in my lifetime (especially knowing what I know now as an adult), it’s hard to admit this, but true: Those people are correct.

I’m not going to waste a whole lot of time on this, but he’s...actually right.

However, consider the following:

• Does Popeyes sell breakfast?
• Does Popeyes have a dedicated app where you can accumulate points toward free food/beverages?
• Popeyes’ sweet tea is too sweet. Yes, I enjoy sugar in my tea, but not so much tea in my sugar.
• What’s up with this?

“At least Popeyes is open late”, “At least Popeyes is open on Sundays”, “They have better sides”, etc., etc. Well, at least when I get in a drive-thru line at Chick-Fil-A, I’m greeted by a friendly, smiling face while I’m in line to take my order so I don’t have to wait until I get to the speaker to give it, only to be told, “I do apologize, but we’re out of (insert food item here)”. I can count on one hand how many times that’s happened at Chick-Fil-A - in fact, I can count it on no hands, since it’s never happened. Plus, I guarantee you those cars hadn’t moved and were still there an hour later. (This is an exaggeration. I have no proof of this)

• The guy that founded Popeyes joked that that the reason there’s no apostrophe between the “e” and the “s” was that he was too poor to afford one. Guess what? Chick-Fil-A could afford not one, but two hyphens when it was founded. Imagine rolling up to a restaurant that couldn’t even be bothered to use proper grammar in its own name.

The choice is easy. Don’t make this too hard on yourselves. Chick-Fil-A is better than Popeyes.

Oh, and beat Orlando.

The views expressed by this writer do not reflect those of the Dirty South Soccer staff. Except the last sentence.