1246 M-89I used to write blogs about fast food places all the time. Then I stopped because it was just pretty repetitive. I get the same thing every time.
I’d still write blogs about fast food places when I went someplace we don’t have here or if something new opened up but I backed way off.
It seems like fast food has changed a lot in recent years. Menus are different. Ordering is different. Things are different.
I don’t eat fast food a lot but if I actually go in and don’t use the drive thru, I feel like I should start adding some blogs for these places. I’ve been writing this blog and it’s predecessor (midmichigandining.com) for about 17 years and it’s always fun to go back and look at how things have changed.
I was in Allegan County last week with a colleague working on an assignment. He needed to be dropped off in Plainwell before I headed back to Kalamazoo. It was a little past dinner time and there are a lot of options not too far off the highway in Plainwell. I was pretty much in that area anyway and I was hungry. I decided to stop at a place that I haven’t been to in a very long time.
KFC in Plainwell is on M-89 to the east of 12th Street about 1/2 mile for the interchange with US-131. This KFC is a standalone building that looks like it underwent a renovation 7 or 8 years ago to bring in the new design with an all white building with red lettering and the famous red and white strips with the Colonel’s caricature front and center.
I skipped the drive thru and headed in to order. The restaurant is set up like the typical fast food place with a large order counter right as you walk in the door but no one was there. It seemed like there were only two people working and they were both assembling orders. There were signs on the counter pointing you towards the ordering kiosks nearby. Like I said, fast food has changed. Mobile orders and self ordering on kiosks are becoming the norm.
The ordering on kiosk wouldn’t have bothered me but only one of them was working. And the lady who walked in the door in front of me took forever to put her order in. It must have been huge because it literally took ten minutes. I almost just left and went and got in the drive thru line because it was taking so long but just as I was getting ready to leave, I saw her pull out her wallet to pay so I stuck it out.
I put in an order for a Spicy Chicken Sandwich combo. I upgraded to a large drink and chose the large fries as my side. It also gave me the option to add on 5 piece nugget for just a couple of bucks. I figured what the hell so I did that too. The cost of the meal, even with all the upgrades, was less than $15.
The dining room is typical fast food dining room other than they have a big rounded bar with stools to sit at underneath a giant chicken bucket. The restaurant doesn’t really feel like the old Kentucky Fried Chicken’s I went to when I was a kid. This is much nicer with wood floors and clean but very KFC wall décor.
It took about ten minutes for my name to be called. I grabbed my bag of food, my Pepsi, and headed back to the office in Kalamazoo to eat.
I started with the fries when I got settled in. The box was only about half full of a battered restaurant style fry. These definitely needed something to dip them as I’m not a huge fan of this type of fry. I paid the extra for the large and while I got the bigger box, I’m not sure I actually got a large fry.
The sandwich is what I was really looking forward to. The sandwiches uses the Extra Crispy recipe on a boneless chicken breast. It’s then topped with pickles and spicy sauce. The sandwich was good. I always liked the Extra Crispy better than Original Recipe anyway. It wasn’t very spicy though. If the only spiciness was in the sauce, that wasn’t enough to give it any kind of heat. It was still a tasty sandwich. I’m not going to try to compare it against other chicken sandwiches on the market without doing a blind taste test with all of them at once. I can just say I liked this one and would go back and order it again. I just wished it was a bit spicier.
I almost forgot about the nuggets but I was glad I found them. They aren’t very big but they are tasty. These chunks of white meat chicken are made with the Original Recipe. It’s better on these nuggets than it is on the fried chicken.
This KFC meal is about what I expected. It was good but didn’t blow my socks off. We were always more of a Popeyes family growing up but there were some special times we got Kentucky Fried Chicken. Trips to Brownstown Speedway in Indiana always started with us bringing a couple of buckets of chicken to the track to eat was once we got parked and before we could actually go in….you know..a little tailgating. KFC was also an impromptu stop on J and I’s honeymoon when we were driving driving on I-75 South towards Gatlinburg, TN and saw the signs for Harland Sanders Cafe & Museum in Corbin, KY. Other than that, I don’t have any real nostalgia towards KFC so when I do stop, my judgement isn’t clouded by memories. I just like fried chicken. That’s what KFC is. A fried chicken joint. It is what is.