Best Fried Chicken Place in Every State

This no-frills gem in a small town just southwest of Selma made Alabama news in 2017 – when it was in a different location and called Jackson’s Fried Chicken – when Mark Zuckerbert and his wife, Priscilla Chan, ate there while on their celebrated road trip across America. (The Meta mogul declared the fried chicken “delicious.”) Besides golden-brown chicken pieces, the menu offers tenders, chicken salad, a chicken liver “snack,” and “The World-Famous COB” – a fried tender sandwich with a tangy house sauce.

This 68-year-old Anchorage institution (not to be confused with the small chain of the same name in Tucson) dips its never-frozen chicken in buttermilk, then in a light batter, for a coating that’s crisp but not thick, and pan-fries it. The most popular presentation is the Pop (there’s also a Mom and a Junior) – five pieces, “generally a breast, thigh, leg, wing, back,” with fries or coleslaw and a Hawaiian roll or corn muffin.

Opened in 1964, this friendly establishment – favorable comments from fans are scrawled all over the walls, and it was featured on the Food Network show “The Best Thing I Ever Ate” – serves “chicken fried steak 7 days a week,” oxtails, pork chops, and fried catfish, but the essential order here is the “golden brown Southern fried chicken,” preferably with red beans or black-eyed peas and mac and cheese on the side.

Monte Ne was a health resort and planned community founded by attorney and politician William Hope Harvey in 1901. It has long since been abandoned and fallen into disrepair, but its memory is honored by this popular family dining destination, which sells nothing but fried chicken and a few sides and desserts. “Enjoy our food ‘family style,’” exhorts the restaurant, “where everybody passes the food around the table to enjoy.”

Founded by Dave Pearson and his parents, Harry and Mae, in 1967, and still owned by the Pearson family, this old-school delight specializes in chicken by the box (including boxes of livers or gizzards), along with some seafood offerings, waffles, and appropriate sides. The chicken is deep-fried to crisp perfection in a pressure-cooker.

Steuben’s owner Josh Wolkon named the place, which boasts a diner vibe and a comfort-food menu, after a noted Boston restaurant owned by his great-uncles in the mid-20th century. Both buttermilk-brined chicken and a Nashville hot version, with a spicy bacon-brown sugar glaze, are offered as part of a complete dinner including mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, and a biscuit (with the traditional bird) or sourdough toast (with the hot version). Fried chicken with a waffle is another option.

Greer’s has been serving what Connecticut Magazine has hailed as the best fried chicken in the state for almost 60 years. The place is tiny, so expect to eat at a picnic table outside – or in your car. What will you be eating? Classic Southern fried chicken (or roasted chicken if you insist), or chunks or nuggets of the same. Wings, a chicken sandwich, and livers and/or gizzards are also on the bill of fare (the latter Buffalo-style if desired), and here are a few seafood items, a dozen or so sides, and a few desserts.

Evolving out of an ice cream parlor originally owned by Walter Samuels in the mid-1970s, Walt’s offers a full menu of fried-chicken-based meals, boxes, and individual pieces, as well as several buffet options involving chicken and other Southern-style dishes, along with a long list of sides. Save room for the homemade cakes (or the peach cobbler or banana pudding).

“We are not a Japanese restaurant nor are we a Soul food place,” reads a note on this establishment’s website. Nonetheless, the menu offers a selection of ramen dishes and fried chicken in pieces or strips (plus livers and gizzards), as well as some sandwiches and seafood offerings. The “gallery” portion of the place displays military-aviation-focused lithographs, photos, and memorabilia (Naval Station Mayport is nearby).

This longtime downtown standby, established in 1947, was acknowledged with an America’s Classics award from the James Beard Foundation last year, and the food is classic indeed – fried chicken (marinated for 12 hours), baked chicken smothered in gravy, and chicken and waffles, plus oxtail, pork chops, fried shrimp, and a few other things. Sides include rice and gravy, broccoli cheese casserole, and cornbread dressing.

Proprietors Nolan West and Matt Tomita launched their operation as a ghost kitchen, selling just the two items cited in their name, then transitioned to a brick-and-mortar place. The crisp-fried chicken is glazed in “our signature sweet and salty ‘Yum’ Korean chicken sauce,” with a number of dipping sauces available on the side. Chicken and smoked “Texas-inspired” brisket packs are also offered – and the eclectic menu also proposes such dishes as kalbi “carne asada” nachos and garlic paniolo butter shrimp.

“Chimaek” is a portmanteau word based on the Korean terms for chicken and beer – a classic combination. In the usual Korean style, the fried chicken here has a shatteringly crisp crust. The menu is simplicity itself: dark or white meat chicken pieces, wings, or fried tofu with a choice of sauces (the traditional sweet-spicy-garlicky one called yangnyum or yangnyeom is recommended) and sides of rice or coleslaw – plus a small choice of tap and bottled beers.

When Gil’s opened in 1962, a fried chicken dinner – pieces are fried in a secret-recipe breading – with two sides cost $1.10. It’s $15.25 today ($16.75 for all white meat), but the meal still accounts for roughly a third of all orders. Also on the menu: chicken tenders, grilled chicken, chicken parmesan, chicken with catfish or walleye, chicken with spaghetti. three kinds of chicken salad, and a lot of other things, chicken and otherwise.

This 55-year-old institution, located in a 19th-century building that once housed a general store in a small town about halfway between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, has been hailed by the IndyStar as “serving perhaps the Midwest’s best fried chicken.” Named this year as one of the James Beard Foundation’s America’s Classics, Wagner’s fries its chicken in cast-iron skillets bubbling with pork fat. The menu offers only a few appetizers plus chicken dinners, which come with unlimited mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, and green beans.

More upscale than many fried chicken places, Bubba specializes in Southern-accented “chef-driven comfort food complemented by craft cocktails, microbrews and wines.” Organic brined chicken fried to order is served in several combinations and can be made hot, honey hot, or with country gravy. Bread-and-butter pickles, garlic-buttermilk mashed potatoes, and two other sides are included. In addition to numerous other non-avian dishes, the menu also lists chicken and dumplings, chicken and waffles, and Cajun chicken and sausage gumbo.

“Our famous home-style chicken” is the specialty here. The menu offers two-, three-, and four-piece assortments of what one Yelp reviewer called “finger-licking must-have fried chicken.” Chicken dinners include potatoes, salad, bread, and coffee or tea. The website KansasTravel notes that Chicken House “is the kind of place where diners converse across the dining room, most of the men wear hats, [and] the napkins are on dispensers on the tables….“

Located in what was once the manor house for a celebrated horse farm that yielded numerous prize-winning steeds, Merrick Inn has a wide-ranging menu, offering everything from Maryland crab cakes to Green Goddess salad to pecan-crusted pork tenderloin, but it is especially known for its Southern fried chicken, hand-breaded “with love,” and served with a choice of two sides. There’s also a Fried Chicken Night every Wednesday, with a specially priced dinner of two chicken pieces, mashed potatoes and pan gravy, and two other sides.

Dubbed one of America’s Classics by the James Beard Foundation, this renowned Southern restaurant, founded in 1957, is famous for its classic fried chicken and its chicken sandwich. Tenders, chicken salad, and baked chicken also share space on the short menu. (Willie Mae’s is temporarily closed, but is expected to reopen in 2024 – and the fried chicken is worth the wait. If you’re impatient, there’s an offshoot in the L.A. community of Venice, called simply Willie Mae’s.)

Here’s something different: chicken thighs and drumsticks brined, fried extra crispy, and scattered with fried shallots in the style of the city of Hat Yai in southern Thailand. Hat Yai wings are also available, as are Gaeng Pèt wings (with red curry) and Sichuan wings (with mouth-numbing Sichuan peppercorns). A choice of sauces is available, and there are a few other Thai dishes on the menu.

This family-friendly storefront serves pizzas (none with chicken, though a version with slow-roasted duck and duck cracklings is available) and a small but diverse menu of Southern-leaning dishes – including a superlative Maryland fried chicken, crisp and golden-brown but anointed with herb-flavored gravy and served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes and braised greens or a sautéed vegetable of some variety.

This popular two-location restaurant channels New Orleans through its decor (including tin ceilings and Crescent City-themed murals) and a good portion of its menu (there’s BBQ shrimp with andouille among the appetizers, and beignets are available for dessert). The house special, though, is buttermilk fried chicken – wings or boneless thighs – served Nashville hot-style or sweet and spicy or with BBQ syrup or white BBQ sauce.

Iva Ousterhout started serving chicken dinners to oil-rig workers lodging at her boarding house back in 1938. The fourth generation of her family is now in charge, and the chicken dinners (and lunches) have been joined on the menu by steak, fried walleye, and a few other main dishes. But chicken is the thing – stewed if that’s your preference, but primarily the Southern fried version, rolled in flour, then pan-fried and steamed in a cast iron skillet. Choose the family-style option and the chicken is unlimited, and enhanced with numerous accompaniments.

This neighborhood favorite, which traces its origins back to the 1940s when a grocery store and restaurant operated on the site but has been The Coop since 1963, specializes in fried chicken dinners, individual pieces, and a chicken and smoked rib combo. Sandwiches, including burgers and hot dogs (and a crispy chicken breast entry), chicken wings, and other items are on offer, and there are specially priced chicken-centric deals five nights a week.

According to the website NatchezTraceTravel, “People travel for hours to partake of [the] ‘Heavenly Fried Chicken’” at this rustic establishment northeast of Natchez, originally opened as, yes, a country store in 1875. The chicken is the star of the all-you-can-eat buffet, served daily from 10 a.m. to early evening. TV food personality Alton Brown has visited, and he says that the only fried chicken he’ll eat besides his own is the one served here.

Billing itself as “a reimagined fried chicken joint for the 21st century,” Sunday Best grew out of chef John Perkins’s acclaimed St. Louis restaurant Juniper, known for having the city’s best fried chicken. Earlier this year, he converted Juniper into this amiable establishment, where the bird is front and center. The chicken is fried in a crust that’s thick enough to keep the interior moist but not so thick that the meat gets lost. The chicken is available not only in pieces but in a sandwich with red pepper jelly and as an ingredient in a club sandwich.

Roost co-owner and “head rooster” Joe Darr comes from a Tennessee restaurant that had restaurants in Lookout Valley and in Rossville, Georgia – the latter of which was famous for its fried chicken. When Darr and his wife relocated to Bozeman about a decade ago, they decided to open a small restaurant with fried chicken (and homemade biscuits) as the main calling cards. The bird is available bone-in or boneless and either classic Southern, Nashville hot, or “sweet heat” in style. Fried chicken sandwiches with comeback sauce are also on the menu.

What is now Lee’s opened as a beer and burger joint in the early 1930s, and was bought by Lee and Alice Franks in 1945. They added fried chicken to the menu and expanded the place in increments to eventually accommodate as many as 400 patrons. Paul and Janice Wilcoxen bought it from the couple in 1969, but left Lee’s name attached. Though there are other items on the menu, the main dish here is still fried chicken, served in variously sized portions. A chicken sandwich and chicken tenders, livers, and gizzards are added pleasures.

Opened in 2012 by Vegas-based restaurant power couple Elizabeth Blau and Kim Canteenwalla, Honey Salt serves a small but diverse menu (blue crab fondue, turkey meatballs, shrimp scampi linguine), but is also known for its pitch-perfect buttermilk fried chicken, which comes with mac and cheese, coleslaw, hot sauce, and honey. If a fried bird is too rich for your blood, there’s also a roasted Jidori chicken with Desert Moon mushrooms and black truffle grits.

Launched in 2020 by restaurateur Sandra Makmann and chef Stevie Driscoll out of the Country View Restaurant in Greenland, Sweet Chix decamped to its new location the following year. Chicken is marinated in sweet tea brine and encased in a lavender/thyme breading, then sold in pieces and strips or as a whole (cut-up) bird. There are also gluten-free and plant-based options, as well as chicken sandwiches and chicken and waffles.

Doug Henri launched his barbecue enterprise as a food truck in 2006 and transitioned to a brick-and-mortar place two years later. He earned a reputation as one of the region’s top pitmasters, especially famous for his ribs and pulled pork. Late last year, however, Henri died from complications of COVID-19. Two months later, his widow, Ruthie, reopened the place and it’s still going strong. Besides pork and brisket and a few other dishes, Henri’s serves smoked chicken and jerk chicken – but is also known for its “Super Chicken,” Southern fried style, which the menu describes aptly as “perfectly seasoned and mouthwatering to the bone.”

Ken Carson brews acclaimed craft beers with names like New Mexico Snow Storm IPA and Lush Imperial Stout, but he has also developed a menu of what he dubs “New Mexico Soul Food,” keyed to accompany his liquid output. This includes memorable Southern fried chicken and waffles and NM Hot Chicken – similar to the Nashville original, but with added red chiles and cayenne. Fried boneless breasts are also served, smothered with white gravy and served with mashed potatoes and collard greens.

Louisiana-born Hattie Gray opened this famed local institution in downtown Saratoga Springs as the Chicken Shack in 1938. Now known as Hattie’s in her honor, the place has long had a devoted local following, with two additional locations in town (one of them appearing seasonally at the famed Saratoga Springs racetrack), and an Albany offshoot coming soon. “Hattie’s Famous Fried Chicken” (breast, wing, thigh, and leg, with two sides, made “Nashville hot” upon request) is the marquee dish, and there are also regular or hot chicken sandwiches and “Good ‘n Evil Chicken Wings” (“a perfect balance of sweet & hot”) – and fried chicken may be baked into the biscuit-crust mac and cheese.

Paying “homage to ‘Nashville style’ hot chicken and southern soul food” (according to its website) Rocky’s serves various chicken combinations in eight degrees of heat, from plain to extra hot. Wings and chicken and waffles are also on the menu, as are grilled and rotisserie chicken and chicken pot pie. There is a second location in Arden, just south of Asheville, and an offshoot in Greenville, South Carolina.

“We are a group of creatives who love food, adult beverages and throwing parties,” say the founders of this lively establishment located in a former tow-truck station. Chicken tenders and boneless chicken breasts, fried exclusively in a gluten-free coating (not for any health reasons, but simply because the proprietors liked that version better than the alternative), are the focus, and there are various sauces available. The Hot as Cluck breast, involving habanero hot sauce, is labeled “Spicy – Not meant for Scandinavians.”

Barberton styles itself “Chicken Capital of the World,” in honor of its four chicken-specialty restaurants, originally opened by Serbian immigrants, which between them serve almost eight tons of fresh chicken a week. There’s nothing on the menu here but chicken in various forms and sides – the essential one being “hot sauce,” which is actually rice in a spicy gravy. According to the White House menu, “In the 1950s, 4 pieces of Legendary Barberton Chicon, Original Hot Sauce (rice), vinaigrette Cole Slaw and Fresh Cut French Fries put White House Chicken on the map!” (There are now additional locations in two other Ohio towns, Green and Wadsworth.)

Nothing fancy here – just chicken dinners, boxes, family packs, boneless chunks, and sides, drinks, and desserts in a rustically furnished family-owned window-service restaurant that’s been frying chicken for more than 30 years. The mac and cheese gets particularly high marks from reviewers as an accompaniment.

Some people like traditional Southern fried chicken, while some prefer the sweet and/or spicy Korean variation. This food truck turned picnic-style eatery has got both groups covered. The brief menu offers the classic style, served boneless with mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and corn, or either spicy or sweet garlic Korean versions, with rice and pickled radish subbing for potatoes and corn. There are also chicken strips, a chicken sandwich with fries, and wings (in any of the three preparations).

Todd and Laura Lyons opened their restaurant in 2017. Both had serious culinary training and their idea was to bring “the skills and techniques of professional chefs to comfort food like fried chicken.” They use antibiotic- and hormone-free birds raised humanely by Coleman Natural Foods in Delaware for their fried chicken pieces, wings, and tenders. There are also regular and Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, and sides including pimento cheese dip and Nashville tater tots with ranch dressing.

Nick and Tracy Rabar were inspired by the food they encountered visiting their son at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, and determined to bring some of that Southern flavor to the Northeast. Thus the pimento cheese, fried green tomatoes, and hushpuppies they serve, among other things – and definitely thus their fried chicken, available as pieces, wings, or tenders, with coatings classified as either traditional, spicy, Nashville hot, honey cholula, or garlic parmesan.

Bernie’s, founded in 1979, is one of the many fried chicken places around the country that describes their birds not as fried but as “broasted.” That basically means frying in oil in a pressure cooker, which keeps the meat moist without soaking the exterior in grease. There are burgers and (non-chicken) sandwiches on the menu, but the spotlight falls on the fried chicken dinners in assorted sizes, served with fries, cole slaw, and a roll.

This unusual establishment, owned by Jayme and Matt Mothershead, specializes in fried chicken and Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. In fact, the menu on the wall behind the counter doesn’t offer much more than chicken by the piece or in baskets with fries, cheesesteak, and a few sides (including country-style potato salad). Both the chicken and the cheesesteak are made according to Matt’s family recipes. (The two obviously like to keep it simple: They also own Mama’s Ladas, which serves pretty much nothing but enchiladas.)

Napoleon “Na” Vanderbilt and his wife, Maggie, started selling fried chicken out the back door of a tavern in Mason, Tennessee, northeast of Memphis, in 1953. They opened a restaurant in the community 20 years later. Na’s son Vernon “Gus” Bonner inherited the place and renamed it for himself, and in 2001, with his blessing, a longtime customer of Bonner’s launched this Memphis offshoot, now one of two in the city. The Mason establishment is still in business, but there are a total of 40 locations around the country, from New Orleans to Chicago to L.A. Chicken plates include baked beans, slaw, and white bread.

With two Dallas locations (the Cedar Springs outlet gets the nod here), Street’s – on the site of the lamented Black-eyed Pea, co-founded by Gene Street – cooks their fried chicken to order (it’ll take 20 minutes to 30 minutes, warns the menu). Also on offer: fried chicken sandwiches, crispy tenders, and chicken “lollipops” (smoked and fried drumsticks) — as well as chicken roasted with herbes de Provence or marinated peri peri style (a spicy Portuguese preparation).

Julius Thompson, a one-time pharmacy technician who pivoted to culinary school and eventually opened an Italian-themed food truck with his wife, launched this brick-and-mortar restaurant in 2019 with the goal of paying tribute to the traditional cooking that, as he writes, “some call…Soul Food, some call it Southern.” In addition to appetizers, main dishes, and sides around that theme, Thompson serves wings, either blackened or blackened and fried, but also old-fashioned fried chicken (drumstick and boneless thigh, breaded with herbs and spices and served with maple hot sauce) and chicken-fried chicken – a pounded and breaded boneless chicken breast with gravy. Two sides and cornbread come with any entrée.

Chef-owner Weston Nicoll brags that he can “fry the hell out of a chicken.” The results are served as a quarter, half, or whole bird with deviled eggs and pickles on the side, or as a sandwich called “The Coquette (The Stoltzfus)” – fried chicken with two sauces: a horseradish-spiked mayo and a mayo-ketchup combo with fermented Korean chile paste added..

Proprietor Calvin Cummings bought this iconic Charlottesville restaurant in 2004, but it’s been around for more than 50 years. “Chicken fried and baked” is available in meals with sides, family packs, boxes, and by the piece. Sandwiches (including several involving chicken) and fried shrimp, clams, or fish are also in the repertoire.

Here’s fried chicken with a tropical flair – Hawaiian-style, served with Kewpie mayo and described as “Crispy Juicy Aloha.” The Ma’Ono locations aren’t exactly restaurants, however. They’re kiosks inside other establishments – the iconic Admiral Benbow Room dive bar in West Seattle and Rachel’s Ginger Beer outposts in University Village, South Lake Union, and Capitol Hill. Key items are fried chicken drumsticks or fingers and fried chicken breast on pulled BBQ kalua chicken on a Hawaiian bun. Gluten-free versions are available with 24 hours notice.

You’ll have to wait 15 minutes for your bird at this unprepossessing-looking counter-service place, as its fried chicken – sold in two-, four-, and six-piece boxes in various combinations of pieces – is made to order. If the boxes won’t do the trick, there are also eight-, 12-, and 20-piece buckets. Chicken tenders and chicken and waffles are also on the menu, as are eight different fried chicken sandwiches.

Natasha Banks and her family own and operate this haven for Southern food – and, yes, that should be “Cozy” but, Banks explains, the name “Cozy Corner” was already taken. Both conventional fried and fried BBQ chicken are on the menu, along with smoked BBQ chicken, wings, gizzards, and chicken and waffles, as well as other meats (and frogs’ legs and catfish). Chicken is also part of four multi-protein platters (the Kings Platter also includes ribs, pork, sausage, two sides, and cornbread).

Graeme and Christine Mara Swain, who’d had a restaurant in their hometown of Omaha, moved to Jackson and opened Gather in 2014, promising “chic-mountain ambiance and modern eclectic cuisine.” The menu covers a lot of ground, from house-made bao buns with braised pork belly to house-made pasta with elk bolognese, but the fried chicken is a standout – brined in buttermilk and served with pepper honey and three-cheese mornay sauce, alongside cavatappi noodles, hot sauce, and Fresno chiles.