Bridgett L.
Yelp
Where to start....I was so excited to try this place since I live in Port Orange & saw they are opening a location here soon. I had been craving chicken salad & thought a restaurant concept based around chicken salad was a great idea. I was too anxious to try it & just couldn't wait for the Port Orange one to open so I drove all the way to Ormond to try it.
I ordered the Chick Trio so I could try three different types of chicken salads. I got Luau Lydia, Dixie Chick, & Fancy Nancy. Unfortunately there wasn't a significant flavor difference between them. They lacked flavor overall. The nuts and fruit that were supposed to be in them were scarce. I only had one whole grape in one scoop and never noticed any crunchy nuts. I prefer chunky chicken salad where you can see a lot of the ingredients & textures, but their chicken salads were very creamy. They seemed to consist of mostly mayonnaise or some other creamy condiments.
The second major disappointment were the crackers that came with the chicken salad scoops. They do NOT come on the plate fanned out like in the professional photos the company posted on here & on the menu. They are the cheap club crackers in the individual, plastic wrapped packages you see on the table at diners. I expected higher quality, fancier crackers to come with it for the price and style of the restaurant. Crostini would be great!
The third major disappointment was their lack of nutrition information. On their website it has said "stay tuned" for nutrition information forever. I talked to the Ormond restaurant and they weren't able to provide nutrition information either. Their advice was for me to call headquarters and ask for the nutrition information. I did. I left a voicemail. Three weeks later, they haven't bothered to call me back. If they can't be bothered to call me back, I can't be bothered to keep giving them my business. I don't care if they call me back weeks later as I understand their office being busy- but call me back at some point. I mean, what did they do? Listen to a customer's voicemail and just hit 'delete'? After checking three different places for nutrition information, I give up. I'm not eating food if I can't track my macros & calories- especially with the amount of mayo in it.
Some positive points....I do like the convenience of their drive-thru, that you can buy chicken salad by the pound to bring home (which would be useful if I wanted to eat it again), the flexible menu combination choices, the variety of different types of chicken salads (which would be helpful if they tasted as good as they sound in the menu descriptions).
I don't know how anyone gave them four and five star reviews. Those people must have never had good chicken salad before. I expected a restaurant whose specialty is chicken salad to have some of the best chicken salad in the area. Wrong. Even Publix's 'honey, fruit, & nut chicken salad' is leaps and bounds above Chicken Salad Chick's. In Publix's fruit and nut version, you can can actually see the little diced pieces of chicken, the colorful pieces of fruit, & the pieces of nuts. You can taste all the flavors in every bite whereas at Chicken Salad Chick, I was lucky to get one bite where I could taste a grape. My favorite chicken salad is from McKay's Tavern in downtown Daytona. It's bursting with flavors, super chunky, & has a great ratio of white meat chicken to other ingredients. Plus it's served with crostini. Both Publix's and McKay's chicken salad had less mayo, more substance.
They lost a Port Orange customer before they even opened here.
If you want good chicken salad, go to Publix or McKay's Tavern. I hate to be harsh, but if your claim to food fame is chicken salad, it better be the best.