Restaurant Caught Selling Popeyes Chicken As Their Own, Offers Bizarre Explanation
UPDATE: Sweet Dixie Kitchen responded to the accusations of them using Popeyes chicken. Still no denial of their dishes containing Popeyes, but they did strongly defend the several foods that are made from scratch. They said, “We have never claimed we make each and every item,” which wasn’t exactly the case before they changed their Facebook bio this morning. Check out the Facebook response below:
Sweet Dixie Kitchen in Long Beach, California has some pretty favorable Yelp reviews and seems to be pretty popular, but one reviewer was not impressed, called them out for selling Popeyes fried chicken, and prompted a strange response from the restaurant.
Tyler H. of Los Angeles, CA accused the restaurant of passing off Popeyes chicken as their own. In the review, Tyler said:
“Before my friends and I got seated we saw them quickly bring in two large boxes of Popeyes to the kitchen. I ordered the Chicken and Waffles to see whether or not they were serving Popeyes to their customers. I thought the chicken tasted suspiciously like Popeyes and was also rather stale. I kindly asked our waiter how they cooked their fried chicken. After checking he admitted that they do in fact use Popeyes.”
Instead of denying it, Sweet Dixie owner Kimberly Sanchez appeared to reply to the review, saying they “Proudly serve Popeyes spicy tenders.”
After naming other places they borrow food from, Sanchez appeared to try and pass it off as part of a collaboration with local businesses. If true, it is one thing to support mom & pop restaurants, it is another to just buy some chicken from an inexpensive fast food chain and pass it off as your own tasty menu item. She even threw in some snark, something that seemed to be consistent with several of Sanchez’s previous Yelp responses, saying, “Whatever to you and your little review like it was some great exposure – and whatever to you dude.”
Get ’em!
Screen grab via Yelp
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Screen grab via Yelp
It is even more comical reading previous Yelp reviews as people love how it has “just the right amount of spice,” and is “perfect!” They probably think they’re getting a special Dixie recipe (Especially since Dixie’s claimed “Everything is made here, right down to our bacon jam and Sriracha sour cream sauce…”), when there’s a chance it was just some good ol’ Popeyes.
It’s nice that people are at least enjoying the chicken, but the biggest gripe a customer could have with this is that you’re paying $12+ for chicken we know costs significantly less. On top of that, on their Facebook page they seem to pride themselves on “big flavor with conscious healthier cooking methods…” No disrespect to Popeyes, we love them, but they’re not exactly the model of healthy cuisine, with their 3-piece tenders having 1,350 milligrams of sodium, and even 1 milligram of trans fat.
Dixie Kitchen’s chicken slider costs around $12.50, and it appears it might just be Popeyes chicken tenders inside their hand-made biscuit.
Not sure if it’s good or bad, but they are suddenly being super transparent about their Popeyes tenders, to the point where they recently posted on Instagram, almost condescendingly (Although it’s always possible they could have been hacked), “Did you know we don’t get anything here? So how do we get this awesome crispy strip? We go to Popeyes every morning to buy enough for you to eat for the day! Come early – we run out!” Hack, or not, this tone now seems consistent through multiple social media avenues.
Screen grab Sweet Dixie Kitchen’s Instagram, before being deleted.
We’ll see how this all works out. Maybe people don’t mind paying high-end prices for fast food. Hopefully Sweet Dixie did get hacked, and this was all an elaborate scheme, because it’s not exactly a good look for this popular restaurant.
