Is this the next great chicken sandwich? A new Roanoke restaurant does chicken right
In a city known for fried chicken, Soul Bird CHKN is serving the chicken sandwich for the 21st century.
The newest restaurant on Roanoke’s South Oak Street serves a standard fried chicken sandwich with pickles, but doesn’t stop there.
Soul Bird CHKN’s menu leads with five very different sandwiches, including a very different take on Buffalo chicken and a “Seoul” sandwich with spicy Gochujang sauce.
On the side: tenders or wings seven ways, crinkle fries and a choice of three chef-driven salads, each topped with either fried or grilled chicken — or with cauliflower steak.
Overall, Soul Bird CHKN is one of the most well-rounded of the new chicken sandwich stands, ranking up alongside Super Chix or the Cookshack in Fort Worth.
The “Phoenix” ($8.49), for example, is a Buffalo chicken sandwich, but different from others.
The Buffalo sauce is listed as “garlic Buffalo.” It tastes like a housemade, improved version of the traditional Frank’s Red Hot sauce.
The sandwich is topped with blue-cheese slaw and optional toppings from a special relish bar: chopped jalapenos, pickled vegetables, chives or onion strings.
The basic Soul Bird fried chicken sandwich ($6.99) is served with house-cut pickles. If you order the grilled version, it begs to be dressed with one of a half-dozen sauces on the relish bar.
There’s also both chicken salad and chicken (tender) salads, which causes a little confusion with diners.
The only problems with Soul Bird CHKN are functional. The Buffalo sauce and side items like pickled vegetables are at a fresh relish bar in the middle of the dining room, but the plasticware is at another station and the drinks are at a third station.
It’s a small inconvenience at a restaurant that’s worth the short drive from the nearby Alliance area, Keller or Westlake.
Soul Bird CHKN replaces a biscuit restaurant in the space across from Chop Shop. It’s open for lunch and dinner daily at 310 S. Oak St., four blocks from legendary Babe’s Chicken Dinner House; 817-464-8188, soulbirdchkn.com.
This story was originally published December 2, 2019 at 5:45 AM.
