Sure. You can get chicken tenders, mac & cheese, and fun sauces outside of the Most Magical Place on Earth. But…have you ever gotten them like THIS?! If you haven’t, then you’re making a BIG mistake. Don’t worry — we’re about to tell you how to fix it.

You might already know that some of the best table service restaurants can be found in Disney Springs, but did you know that there’s also some great fast food available there as well? Right now we’re taking you on a trip with us to a counter service restaurant that was created by a celebrity chef and we’re going to show you why it might be worth it to opt for chicken tenders and mac & cheese over some of Disney Springs’ fancier eats!

Get out those frosted tips and put your sunglasses on backwards — it’s time to go to FLAVORTOWN! Guy Fieri (who you may recognize from his popular TV shows on Food Network) worked with renowned restauranteur Robert Earl to create Chicken Guy!, which opened in Disney Springs in 2018.

This spot has a fairly simple menu (consisting mainly of chicken tenders and other chicken based dishes). But the sauce menu is a whole other world! If you want to dunk your chicken tenders and fries, there are 22(!!) different sauces to choose from. 

The chicken tenders are the foundation of the menu here, and they’re hand-pounded, brined in lemon juice, pickle brine, and buttermilk, infused with herbs, and then generally breaded and fried. We’ve loved the eats at this spot in the past, so we went back recently to see if it still measures up to our expectations.

Atmosphere

Chicken Guy! is located near the huge Coca-Cola store in Disney Springs. The restaurant itself is pretty tiny, with a relatively small counter for ordering on one side and a small dining room on the other.

There can be a LOOOONG line to get into this spot, but once you enter through the front door you’ll be greeted by some big murals with the restaurant’s logo and mascot. Want to skip some of the lines? You can actually order Chicken Guy! online for pick-up through the Chicken Guy website.

The menu is printed on the wall, and you can see a big list of all 22 of their sauces (along with descriptions of what the sauces are) while you’re waiting in the queue.

Since the building is pretty small, there’s very limited seating inside. There are only a few tables, and they’ve usually been full during our visits (especially if it’s hot or raining outside).

There is also some counter seating along the window, which is usually full as well. Even though the tables are often taken, the turnover is typically pretty fast. If you wait for just a little while, you’ll probably be able to get a spot without too long of a wait!

Outside, you’ll find several more tables, which have umbrellas over them that sometimes block the sun. To be honest, they don’t always do a great job of blocking the sun, so prepare to experience a decent amount of that Florida HEAT. During the winter, this area has big outdoor heaters that keep the chill away while you enjoy your meal.

In general, the comfort of the dining room is not the biggest draw for this restaurant. If you’re looking for comfy chairs inside a relaxing, large, air conditioned dining room this ain’t it. BUT the fun selection of sauces and great quality of food have us coming back time and time again.

If you’re finding that the dining room and outdoor tables are packed, you can always get your food to-go and take it to the covered area nearby (the one to the left if you’re exiting Chicken Guy! where there are a number of stores to look at and ledges for sitting). In better weather, you can also take your food to-go and find another open area in Disney Springs to sit at — perhaps a spot closer to the water, a fountain, or just in a quieter area.

Now that you’ve got a plan for where to potentially eat your food, let’s get to the good part: the food itself! Hunger warning: the following photographs may make you feel extremely hungry. BE PREPARED.

Menu

Like we mentioned before, the menu here is fairly simple. You can see it on the wall before you get to the register. You can also find it on the My Disney Experience app or take a look at it on the Chicken Guy! website if you want to plan ahead! Don’t forget you can order online through the Chicken Guy! site.

The featured item here is the chicken tenders, which you can get in a set of three or five. Each of those dishes comes with two signature sauces (listed below). There are also several options for signature sandwiches, each of which features 2 crispy fried chicken tenders.

You can add fries and a drink to your meal by making it a combo. The combos come with 3 tenders, 5 tenders, or a sandwich, along with fries and a drink. There are also a few options for salad bowls…

…and sides like fries, slaw, fried pickles, and mac ‘n’ cheese. That Loaded Mac Daddy Mac ‘n’ Cheese might have caught your eye and for GOOD reason. We’ll come back to that soon!

The little ones can choose from a few different options, including two tenders, a grilled cheese, or the Mac Daddy mac ‘n’ cheese. Each of the kids’ meals is served with a side.

And don’t forget to peek at the Flavortown Shakes (you gotta have something to wash down those chicken tenders with, am I right?!). These shakes come in a variety of flavors like Triple Double Mint, Apple Cinnamon Cereal, Oreo, and more.

And finally, we get to the pièce de résistance — the sauces! If you’re the type of person who will literally dunk anything and everything in sauce — you do NOT want to miss out on this. There are a LOT of sauce options — 22 to be exact — so you’re bound to see one that sounds good to you. Many of the dishes here (like the chicken tenders and one of the sandwiches) come with 2 sauce options. But why just get 2 when you could get 22?!? You can get extra sauces for $0.50 each. If you get all 22 that’s around $11 (not too bad).

Alright, enough talking — let’s EAT.

Eats and Drinks

For our drink, we started with dessert (truly the best way to start and end a meal) and got the Oreo Flavortown Shake. We chose a regular in terms of size, which is $4.99. This shake is made of hand-spun vanilla soft-serve ice cream with crushed Oreo cookies inside, and is topped with fresh whipped cream and some more crushed Oreos. Bring on the ice cream!

In general, we were very happy with this shake (Oreo cookies and vanilla ice cream — what’s not to love?)! It had chunks of Oreos throughout the drink, and there were some on top of the whipped cream as well. The shake melted pretty fast, so you’ll want to drink it up fast! One great thing is that you can tell it’s a good quality ice cream because it tasted very rich and had a thick consistency. But don’t worry about having to use a spoon. You could still drink it through a straw, especially after it had been sitting in the sun for just a couple of minutes.

The only downside we found was that the milkshake didn’t really have a strong Oreo flavor. It was pretty much a vanilla shake with chunks of cookies inside. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking for a stronger cookies & cream flavor, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

Chocoholics might be disappointed with the dominant vanilla flavor, but if you love milkshakes and Oreos, we don’t think you’ll be mad at this treat!

For our main meal, we tried the Southwestern Sandwich, which is $6.99. The sandwich has pepper jack cheese, special sauce, avocado crema, cumin lime mojo, charred corn, roasted peppers, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, & crispy tortilla strips. All of these are smooshed in there with the 2 crispy fried chicken tenders.

This was the most flavorful thing that we tried at Chicken Guy! during our recent trip! The sauces and toppings made the sandwich very moist and flavorful, and we really enjoyed every bite!

If you love Tex-Mex flavors, this is the sandwich for you. It wasn’t very spicy, but we enjoyed all the different elements and textures. You’ll get a lot of black beans and corn right at first, but you can find bites with a little of everything once you really get into the sandwich.

The bun was very soft, the chicken was crispy and delicious, and the tortilla strips added a great crunch — basically, this was texture heaven!

Our only complaint is that we wish it were a chicken breast instead of two tenders inside this sandwich because that would’ve made it a little easier to eat. The tenders kept trying to slip out while we were eating (RUDE!), but the struggle was #WorthIt.

For people looking for more complex flavors on a good chicken sandwich, this is a great option. But if you prefer simpler food or don’t enjoy Tex-Mex flavors, maybe check out the CG Classic, which has much fewer toppings.

As a side item, we got the Loaded Mac Daddy Mac ‘n’ Cheese. HEADS UP: this is a shareable side, which means it’s larger than what you’d expect from a regular, smaller side. A.k.a. get those stretchy pants and bring your ferocious appetite!

For $7.99, you can get macaroni smothered in SMC (that’s what those in the know call “super melty cheese” ), chopped crispy or grilled chicken, bacon, & green onions. For our dish, we went with the crispy chicken.

We think this is a GREAT staple dish! It’s definitely a crowd-pleaser, so if you have picky eaters or little kids, this is probably going to be a winner for them. The noodles are cooked very well and are curly-shaped. We found that the shape of the noodles was great for holding the sauce.

The cheese sauce tasted homemade to us, and it had a strong cheddar flavor. The chicken strips on top were crispy (giving the side a nice texture difference), and the bacon added a smokey flavor to the mix.

For the price, the loaded mac ‘n’ cheese is a great value, and we’ll definitely be back for this dish. Seriously folks, if you like chicken, bacon, cheese, and noodles — just order this, close your eyes, and SAVOR those flavors. We don’t think you’ll regret it for a second.

BUT (of course) we couldn’t come to Chicken Guy! and not get some tenders, so we snagged three crispy fried tenders and several sauces to snack on (we told ya to bring your stretchy pants!). The tenders come with 2 sides but we added on 3 more (and seriously, that was some restraint because there are 22 to pick from!!). The tenders were $5.99, and the 3 additional sauces were $0.50 each.

What sauces did we get? Wonderful question. We chose these sauces to try:

• Nashville Hot Honey Sauce — which is described as having honey, red chiles, cayenne, garlic, and onion (it’s under the Hot ‘n’ Spicy category)
• Avocado Crema — which is described as having avocado, sour cream, cilantro, and lime (it’s under the Guy! Favorite category)
• Donkey Sauce — which is described as having mayo, roasted garlic, mustard, Worcestershire,  and lemon (it’s under the Guy! Favorite category)
• Bourbon Brown Sugar BBQ — which is described as having Kentucky bourbon, brown sugar, molasses, and apple cider vinegar (this is under The Classics)
• Special Sauce — which is described as having mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickle juice, and Chicken Guy! special spices and seasoning (it’s under the Guy! Favorite category)

The chicken tenders were a little flat (in terms of physical shape), but the breading was nice and crispy! The chicken itself tasted good (we didn’t feel like we were getting a super low quality meat which can happen sometimes with fast chicken tenders, so that was nice). Most of the flavor comes from the sauces, so there isn’t a lot of a kick from the breading itself, but that’s okay with us cause we’re more than happy to dunk away.

We thought the Nashville Hot Honey had a great amount of spice — it reminded us of jalapeños in terms of spice level. The sauce wasn’t very thick, but it was delicious and not overly sweet.

The Avocado Crema was actually a little disappointing to us. It had a plain avocado flavor with a slight hint of lime, which makes sense considering the ingredients listed for it. We just wish it would have had more spices and other elements to give it more of a guacamole flavor.

The Donkey Sauce is HEAVY on the mayo, but still pretty tasty! We actually could’ve done with a stronger flavor from this one. That sort-of surprised us because a lot of the ingredients seemed like they’d dominate the flavor profile. But maybe all the strong flavors somehow counteracted each other or we just didn’t get a batch with as strong of a flavor? It was still tasty, we just wish it would have hit us in the face with flavor a bit more!

The Bourbon Brown Sugar BBQ had a liquid smoke-type flavor, and you could definitely pick out the bourbon as well! There was a slight sweetness to it, but the vinegar added a great bite. Overall, it was really well balanced in that respect!

And finally we get to the Special Sauce, which is another mayo-based sauce, though this one is slightly spicy. It’s almost like Chick-Fil-A sauce, but we feel like it needed one dominant flavor to really take it to the next level. It’s still a good sauce though and we definitely weren’t mad at it, but it could have used a little oomph to take it to the next level!

If you’re sharing between family and friends, we recommend getting a bunch of different sauces and sharing so that you can try out a lot of different flavors and combinations! Seriously, the sauces are the STARS here!

And that’s a look at our meal at Chicken Guy! Should you stop by this place? We’ve got some thoughts… .

Nosh or Not

You SHOULD fly over to Chicken Guy! if:

• You love sauces. The dishes themselves are good, but as we’ve said above, the sauces are what really take some of them (especially the plain tenders) to the next level. With 22 sauces to pick from, you can get them all, get a few to share, or just get a limited number this trip and have something to look forward to on the next one. You can mix and match spicy and sweet, mayo-based and soy sauce-based. It’s a whole sauce experience!
• You’re traveling with kids or picky eaters and want to find something for everyone. Sometimes a simple menu is a blessing. Chicken tenders, chicken sandwiches, chicken salads, mac & cheese, and shakes. These are solid choices that could probably satisfy any picky eater in your group. But because some items have more fun toppings AND you can mix and match the sauces, it will also satisfy those looking for more flavorful items. We thought the Southwestern Sandwich was great for someone who wants a more complex dish, but the chicken tenders and mac ‘n’ cheese are easy crowd pleasers.
• You want a quick & inexpensive meal. Disney Springs is full of delicious dishes, but if you don’t have the time to dedicate to a sit-down meal and you’re looking for something relatively inexpensive, this can be an awesome spot! Tasty , quick , and not too pricey — this place checks off all three boxes.

You should fly past Chicken Guy! and DINE SOMEWHERE ELSE if:

• You want to try some unique or interesting food that you can’t get anywhere else. Even though the food here is delicious, it’s not really unique. The sauces are fun, but you can get some more diverse and interesting food at Disney Springs if you head to places like Morimoto Asia, Jaleo, or even the counter-service Polite Pig. Even the fried chicken here doesn’t compare to Chef Art Smith’s Homecomin’.
• You want to sit in a relaxing, air conditioned environment and take your time on your meal. This is a quick service restaurant and tables indoors can fill up quickly. You’ll generally find a spot if you’re willing to wait a little bit or you can head to the outside seating, but again things here are a bit faster paced. That doesn’t mean you can’t sit down and enjoy your meal. But if you’ve got the time (and the budget) and you’re looking for a place to sit down and have a more drawn out, relaxing meal then you might want to opt for some of the table service spots in Disney Springs.
• You have a big group and you all want to sit inside. There is just not a ton of room inside this restaurant, so it’ll be hard to seat a big party. If you’ve got a really big group and you want to dine indoors, you might want to grab a reservation at one of the table-service restaurants or just prepare to split up at a few different tables to make things work.

Overall

Overall we’ve really enjoyed the food at Chicken Guy! in the past, and this experience was no exception! Finding a good table (especially indoors) can require a bit of patience, but we honestly think the food is worth it.

A highlight for us is always the fun sauces, and the loaded mac ‘n’ cheese is delishhhhh (trust us on this one!)! The prices are very reasonable (especially compared to other dishes in Disney Springs), so this is a good place to visit if you’re traveling on a budget.

Want to get Chicken Guy! but not leave your car? Well if you’ve got a vehicle with you, there is now a drive-through Chicken Guy! location in Orlando, near Disney World. You could opt to go there instead of the Disney Springs location if that fits better into your plans.

What do you think? Are you a fan of Chicken Guy!? Tell us in the comments!

And keep following DFB for more reviews of restaurants all around Disney World.

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The post Review: Budget-Friendly and Tasty Disney World Eats? They DO Exist. first appeared on the disney food blog.