Emmett T.
Yelp
TL; DR... It was April Fool's Day which also doubled as the grand opening for the Livonia location of Guy Fieri's chicken shop chain. The word of mouth got around as there were more than two dozen vehicles lined up in the drive-thru lane along with a queue that extended out the front entrance. This was around 3 pm which was well past the peak lunch hours. People who were leaving when I showed up said the line stretched down the sidewalk when they arrived.
The wait to reach a register to place an order only took 10 minutes. The problem was the number of customers milling around waiting for their food. I observed plenty of workers behind the counter, but most were idle. I overheard a manager exclaim that the backlog was caused by the slow processing time of the machine that churned the milkshakes. This held up the fulfillment of orders containing that item. The staff was aware of the root cause of the delays so now they have to find a workaround going forward.
The first items on the left menu screen were the Signature Sauces (not the chicken, hmm). Twenty-two sauces were listed across three categories... Guy! Favorites, The Classics, and Hot 'N Spicy. Additional sauces could be purchased for $0.50 each. Below the sauces were the Flavortown Shakes and Beverages. It wasn't until the right menu screen that the Signature Sandwiches, Chicken Tenders, Salad Bowls, Kids' Menu, and Sides were to be found.
I placed an order to-go consisting of Three Tenders ($6.99). Two sauces came with the tenders, and I asked for a third sauce with a surcharge. My sauces were one from each category.
* 2. Donkey Sauce (Guy! Favorites) - mayo, roasted garlic, mustard, Worcestershire, lemon
* 8. Bourbon Brown Sugar BBQ (The Classics) - Kentucky bourbon, brown sugar, molasses, apple cider vinegar
* 19. Peri Peri (Hot 'N Spicy) - roasted red bell peppers, chiles, garlic, onion, paprika, oregano, lemon
The food came out surprisingly fast (~15 min) given the large number of customers who were waiting ahead of me. I think that was because there was no milkshake involved, and I chose the smallest chicken item. I took my bag and ate the contents in my vehicle. What I noticed about the tenders was one, they were on the small side, and two, the crust was not very crispy and not hot out of the fryer.
The national chicken shop competitors offer a much larger piece of chicken as a tender. The crust is a crunchy coating of deep-fried batter instead of breading that is pressure fried. As for the dips, the Donkey Sauce was an aioli that needed more garlic to increase the pungency. The Bourbon Brown Sugar BBQ didn't taste any different that the BBQ sauce you can get from McDonald's. The winner was the Peri Peri which had a strong chili flavor but wasn't overly spicy.
I figured the operations on opening day were going to be messy with the massive demand so I didn't factor that into my rating. The chicken tenders were at a two star level with the sauces adding another half star. I rounded my Chicken Guy experience to three stars because the wait turned out to be much shorter than I feared.