Chicken King - Louisville

My favorite chicken spot in town!!! I've been coming here for years and never reviewed it ironically.

What to get: fried chicken specials Service: 4/5 Atmosphere: fast food, take out, very casual Wait: 5 mins (Thursday 10:30AM) Parking: small parking

I've gotta be honest, the only reason I decided to try this place out was because of all of the great reviews it has.

We heard that the Chicken King is considered the best fried chicken by locals in Louisville and I'd have to agree (though I am a visitor to Kentucky and don't have much to compare it to). My friend is from KY and so is her mother who is an excellent cook of Southern dishes. My friend said that their chicken ranks up near her mother's home made fried chicken.

I hate giving low reviews. I really do, I want to give the benefit of the doubt and try to excuse any mistakes or issues when I am giving a place my business. But the fact of the matter is that some things are easily fixed and if you choose to ignore them is when I get salty. So pull up a chair and listen to this bunch of BS. I was ordering for myself and two other people. I go to the website this is a Friday at 3pm. Website says you can place a carryout order. OK, except the next available date is the following Tuesday at noon? What? OK fine, maybe the system is down or they dont do carryout on the weekends. I check Doordash. Doordash is SUPER HAPPY to take my delivery order for higher prices on the food, plus $10 in fees that dont include the tip, so no thanks, you suck, Doordash. I decide I will go there in person. The lobby is closed and so you must take the drive through. The line is such that it wraps completely around the building. I am in line for 45 MINUTES. I FINALLY get to the speaker and it is like an SNL skit the voice coming through is semi garbled with static and almost impossible to understand. I am trying to be loud and clear without shouting across the neighborhood. We get to the end of my order and it is repeated back. For some reason the person working CANNOT understand that I want a 20 piece nugget and not a 9. We go back and forth on this for a few minutes. In the end, I drive up and you cannot even verify anything with the workers because they have this revolving door looking window, where you put in money, it spins to a blank wall, and then it spins back with your food and change. You had one chance to speak and now you are stuck with whatever you get. The bag was suspiciously small and as I suspected, messed up. What I ordered: 6 piece spicy wing Rib Tip Box 20 piece nuggets with BBQ sauce 2 Sides of BBQ beans 2 SIdes of Mashed Potatoes 2 Banana Pudding What I got: 6 piece wing, not spicy, dry, came with no sauce. But it did come with three potato wedges and a roll one mashed potato and one side of beans 9 piece nugget with three packs of Chinese duck sauce ?? one banana pudding On top of it, everything was cafeteria level food. The nuggets were from a box. The mashed potato was clearly dehydrated potato. The beans are from a can. The only thing worth its salt was the banana pudding, but even it was not good enough to wait in a 45 minute line again. So in conclusion, IDK if Chicken King 's owners are cheap not upgrading the speaker system or brilliant making it look like they are so great they are slammed with cars day in and day out or they simply will not hire more workers in order to get the lobby open again. But either way, they had their shot with me, and I 'm over it. It shouldnt be this hard to order such mediocre food.