Super Chicken at Super Foods in Logan
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
editor@enterprisepub.com
Our general manager, Echo Estep, suggested to drive to Logan and talk with Dion Pitt, the manager of Super Foods. When we arrived, Dion was out.
But my wife and I were hungry. We both love fried chicken. So, we headed to the deli, bought fried chicken thighs and ate them in our car.
Before we left the parking lot I realized those were the best chicken thighs I've ever had. My wife and I agreed we would be back for more, and I was even more interested in an interview.
We returned on a cool, rainy, dark late afternoon. We were in Logan to talk with Christina Dickinson of the Humane Society about its recent Poker Run, and Super Foods is about a block away. This time Dion was in. He came to the front and welcomed us by name, including my wife, whom he had met only once, which impressed me a great deal. When I told him why we were there and about our love for their fried chicken, he asked us back to his office.
On the way, we passed the unassuming and clean deli. And, there in the heated display case was a freshly-cooked batch of fried chicken.
We talked in his tight, well-used office in the back. I asked Dion about the chicken.
"It's fresh," Dion said. "It's just fresh chicken, never been frozen. We bread it here. We bread it fresh. We don't pre-bread it. We just bread it and stick it right in the fryer."
"It's our biggest seller as far as the deli, of course, is the chicken," he said. "I mean, this has been forever, as long as I've been here," he said. "We'll do anywhere from 700 to 800 pieces of chicken on the Fourth of July."
"It's a family thing," Dion said. "It's the same families have done it for 30 or more, 35 years or longer. And that's what their tradition is."
"On the Fourth of July, they watch the parade, and when the parade's over, everybody comes, gets their chicken," he said. "That's the bad thing about this deal, the Fourth of July," he said. "You have to have that many pieces done by noon, 'cause they all come at the same time."
The deli offers more than chicken. "On Tuesdays, we have taco Tuesdays," Dion said. The deli makes taco salads, enchiladas and crispitos, which he said are popular. For the last year and a half to two years, it has served Chinese food every Wednesday. "That's very popular," he said. Thursday is meatloaf. "It's just normal stuff," he said. "But our chicken tenders are very popular. They're very good."
Before I turned on the recorder, Dion and I spoke briefly about the way inflation has been vertical for the last few years.
"Food prices are high," he said. "But our ads are very good. You shop our ads, and they're as good prices you'll find anywhere."
