Meet one of the vendors of our Museum Homecoming Tailgate on Friday, October 2! Chicken Salad Chick will have food available for purchase from 3 to 7 pm as we celebrate the opening of Out of the Box: A Juried Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition. The community-wide event is open to all ages, and will include sculpture tours, art and family activities, a tiger bounce house for kids, a grand prize giveaway, and delicious food and beverage options from local favorites (including Chicken Salad Chick!). Cash is preferred, we ID. No outside food or drinks allowed.
Vendor Spotlight: Chicken Salad Chick
Chicken Salad Chick will serve
-Chicken salad!
About Chicken Salad Chick:
“I have always been on my own personal quest to find the perfect chicken salad. Every restaurant I entered, I would order the chicken salad sandwich. The funny thing about chicken salad is that everyone’s idea of the “perfect” one is so completely different, although we all pretty much agree that chicken and mayonnaise are the two key components. So, after tasting every chicken salad I came across, I realized everyone’s idea of the perfect recipe is different. I began working on my original recipe at home and taste testing on my cooperative and wonderful neighbors. They were kind enough to give me honest feedback as I kept tweaking. I finally arrived with a recipe where the consensus was that “this was IT.” Thanks to my neighbors and the teachers at Ogletree Elementary School, within three weeks I had more business than I could handle.
I then formed a partnership with Kevin Brown, my future husband, who had shared this vision with me from the beginning. He had the experience and business sense to turn a recipe into a restaurant.
So business was booming, word was spreading, the idea of a restaurant was growing and Ring! “Stacy?…” “Yes?” “This is Stan from Lee County Health Department…. Where are you cooking your chicken?” “In my kitchen Stan… is that a problem?” “Yes… that is illegal. You cannot cook anything in your home and sell it.” “Thanks Stan.” So we put a halt to everything. Our customers were outraged and some tried to get some smuggled anyway. Jeffrey Tucker, the vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and a customer of mine, wrote in blog titled “The Chicken Salad Chick Shut Down,” saying “This girl has been shut down, not because she is a threat to our health, but because she is a threat to competition!” He also went on to say, “It’s a classic case of suburban food hysteria.” Thank you, Jeffrey. Thank you also to the anonymous caller who turned me into the health department. You really lit the fire under Kevin to turn this idea into a restaurant sooner than ever! Since that day, he has worked tirelessly to turn this dream of ours into a reality. This has truly been a collaborative effort by neighbors keeping my children so I could work, by friends painting artwork on the restaurant walls, friends offering professional services free of charge and my family’s undying support. Thank you everyone and especially Kevin….Thank you for never giving up. We did it!
Chicken Salad Chick is a place all chicken salad lovers can find something they enjoy. With 15 different chicken salads to choose from, there is something for every palate. So now that you know about us, come see what kind of lunch a computer software salesman and a stay-at-home mom have whipped up for you. It’s pretty tasty!”
– Stacy Brown
Out of the Box is made possible in part with funds provided by Julian Robert Haynes, in memory of Dr. Lucile McGehee Haynes, Grace and David E. Johnson, and the Susan Phillips Educational Gift Fund.
