All this talk about Robert Stehling’s new Chick’s Fry House got us thinking — how many fried chicken options exist on King Street? Turns out, quite a lot. By our count, there are 15 places that serve variations of the dish within 2.3 miles. From a classic fried chicken plate to fried chicken sandwiches to homemade chicken fingers to a fried chicken taco, you can get your chick fix about every two blocks. And that’s just one street on the peninsula.
Is it overkill or a Charleston staple? At the very least we can prove that Charleston has had a 168-year fascination with fried poultry. We know this thanks to Holy City cookbook author Sarah Rutledge who included three fried chicken recipes in her 1847 cookbook, The Carolina Housewife.
Perhaps it’s no wonder then that our continued fondness for the crunchy preparation has continued to thrive to the point where you can’t throw a drumstick without hitting another drumstick on our city’s most well-known road. If anything, someone really should open a restaurant called Chicken a la King.
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