When you go on vacation, do you try to eat at places you don’t have back home?
Dining at establishments you don’t get to enjoy regularly is part of a true and full vacation experience. It just adds to the overall feeling that you’ve gotten away for awhile.
I recently spent an extended weekend across the border in Canada, and decided to try a fast food place I’d never heard of here in the United States: Mary Brown’s Chicken.
Mary Brown’s Chicken boasts more than 300 locations across Canada. But is its recipe a ripoff? (Photo via GoogleMaps)
The Mary Brown’s Chicken Origin Story
According to the restaurant’s website, Mary Brown’s Chicken began with one restaurant in Newfoundland in 1969, and spread to Ontario by the early 1970s. It now has hundreds of locations, with at least one in every Canadian province besides Quebec and the Yukon Territory.
With that many locations, the fried chicken must be good, right?
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Maybe it’s too good.
Even though I’d never been to a Mary Brown’s before, my taste buds were flooded with familiarity immediately. I recognized that flavor from the first bite. Zehnder’s.
Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth has been serving up its world-famous chicken dinners since 1929. (Photo via JR, Townsquare Media Lansing)
If you’ve ever visited Zehnder’s in Frankenmuth, Michigan, you know what I’m talking about. Their fried chicken is the stuff of dreams. Sure, they sell their patented seasoning blend to the general public, but no one’s quite able to replicate Zehnder’s fried chicken.
Or so Mary Brown would have us believe.
Cookers, Not Pressure Fryers
Mary Brown’s Chicken claims its secret is its proprietary cookers. “Rather than pressure fried, which is the industry standard, our cookers use heat to seal in juiciness and flavour and give our chicken its delicious natural golden colour,” its website says. (Note the Canadian spellings of flavor and color.)
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I’m here to tell you it tastes just like Zehnder’s.
Who Came First? A Timeline Clue
I will also point out that Zehnder’s was serving up its delicious chicken a full 40 years before Mary Brown’s ever got started.
So you think you could stay over there on your side of the border and not get busted, eh, Mary? I’m onto you.
But I will still 100% be back next time I’m in Canada.
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Gallery Credit: Google
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