Chicken Salad Chick hosting pop-ups in Dayton area

Credit: Facebook Photo

Credit: Facebook Photo

Chicken Salad Chick, a Southern-inspired, fast-casual chicken salad restaurant, is bringing its products to the Dayton area.

The Mason restaurant, located at 6209 Snider Road in the Snider Commons shopping center, has been hosting a series of pop-up, delivery events at Smyth Automotive, Inc. in Springboro.

“We (did) something like this during Covid,” said general manager Kathryn Deffinger. “We get a lot of Dayton area people who come down here and want a Chicken Salad Chick up near them, so we thought we would try to meet them halfway and bring them some chicken salad.”

Those interested in ordering have until 9 p.m. the night before delivery to place orders online. Chicken Salad Chick requires a minimum of 25 orders to do the pop-up, but assistant manager Grace Walter said they have surpassed that threshold in recent events.

“It’s a good group of consistent people who wait for it every month,” Walter said. “It has been a blessing in that sense, and we’re just getting more and more people each time.”

Instead of ordering individual meals, customers have the opportunity to order sharable-size containers of chicken salad, pimento cheese or egg salad in addition to bread or croissants, sides and cookies.

The next pop-up will be on a Wednesday in October. The exact date will be announced soon on the restaurant’s Facebook page.

Deffinger and Walter said Dayton has been a huge success and they hope to offer pop-up options in other cities near Mason in the future.

“We’re really trying our best to make sure they know we value them as customers and that we’re willing to do this because we want to see them enjoy our product,” Walter said.

The Mason restaurant is owned by franchisees Beth and Mike Heydt of Ready to Serve LLC.

“It has always been a dream of ours to own a restaurant and we’ve been searching for one that aligns with our personal values and goals,” Mike previously said. “The moment we were introduced to Chicken Salad Chick during a family trip, we knew we had the perfect match.

Chicken Salad Chick started in Alabama in 2008 in the kitchen of Stacy Brown when she discovered the local county health department would not allow her to continue making and selling her recipes out of her home kitchen. Brown and her late husband Kevin overcame that obstacle by opening a small takeout restaurant, which quickly grew and began franchising in 2012. The franchise now has over 225 restaurants.

For more information, visit www.chickensaladchick.com or visit the restaurant’s Facebook page (@chickensaladchickmason).

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