Chicken and waffles? New Arkansas-based chicken tender restaurant opening in Bradenton
There’s a new chicken tenders restaurant coming to the Bradenton area.
Slim Chickens, an Arkansas-based fast-food restaurant, will open its doors on Jan. 23 at 14675 SR 70 East in Lakewood Ranch.
The restaurant is expected to bring about 75 new jobs to the area. This is Florida’s ninth Slim Chickens restaurant to open.
“The Lakewood Ranch community has been incredibly welcoming, and we couldn’t be more proud to open our first Slim Chickens here,” Tommy El Mahdi, director of operations for Florida’s Best Chicken, said in a press release.
Slim’s is entering a competitive market in Bradenton, which already has Chick-fil-A, PDQ and Zaxby’s, not to mention a new Raising Cane’s in Clearwater. But what the restaurants bring to the table is a focus on Southern flavor.
On the menu
The restaurant offers chicken in many different ways, from tenders to wings, sandwiches and wraps. There is even chicken and waffles on the menu.
The sides are all Southern staples: macaroni and cheese, cole slaw, fried okra and fried pickles.
For dessert, there are milkshakes, dessert jars and brownies.
They also have 17 signature house sauces that come in flavors like gravy, Korean bbq, cayenne ranch and sriracha garlic.
About Slim Chickens
Tom Gordon and Greg Smart, high school friends, launched the first restaurant in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 2003. The y worked together on crafting the restaurant’s menu, testing the food, and securing their first store location, which was a former Japanese restaurant, they said in a meet the founder video on the website.
They said they threw around a couple of names, but none stuck. Gordon received a phone call from his mother, who asked, “What about Slim Chickens?”
Gordon and Smart did everything themselves to open their first store, which had a “Mardi Gras” theme.
The restaurant grew in popularity by word of mouth and customers kept coming back, they said.
There are 200 locations open in 32 states and internationally in the United Kingdom. They plan to open 400 more restaurants within 10 years.
This story was originally published January 20, 2023 at 5:19 PM.
