Popeyes Chicken in Waterloo

Andrew had an open house session at Wilfred Laurier University (WLU) two weeks ago, so Dad, Andrew and I went on a road trip to Waterloo, Ontario. There was a heat wave hovering around southeastern Ontario during the first week of July. But we got through the heat with help from the air-conditioned car, water, iced coffee, and lots of shade.

Leaving ourselves plenty of time, we left Ottawa as the sun began to peek over the horizon. We briefly stopped for breakfast at Tim Hortons in Carleton Place. I had a toasted sesame bagel with strawberry cream cheese, Andrew had a bacon breakfast bagel, and Dad had a sausage biscuit sandwich. We ate in the car and continued on the Trans-Canada Highway 7 toward Toronto.

We arrived in the Greater Area of Toronto (GTA) around 9am and decided it would be safe to grab lunch in Waterloo. We arrived in Waterloo around 11am, drove around town, got lost in Kitchener, and then finally found our way back to WLU.

Although there were plenty of other intriguing lunch options like Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese, and Greek restaurants, we settled on Popeyes Chicken. I remember the first time I heard of Popeyes Chicken. My cousin, Jennie, asked me if we had Popeyes in Ottawa a few years back. We (Ottawa) have a few Popeye's stores, but they sell nutritional supplements instead of fried chicken, baked biscuits, and sweet iced tea. I believe the closest Popeyes Chicken location to Ottawa is in Kingston.

Given all the items on the menu, we agreed on their Thursday special: 3 Piece Bonafide Chicken ($3.99). For a split second, I thought about getting the Louisiana spicy tenders like I did in Detroit. We bought two of those combos with spicy chicken, plus a side of mac and cheese, coleslaw, and two fountain drinks. I’m not sure why I asked for mac and cheese. I knew it was going to taste like plastic. I wanted to avoid the mashed potatoes, french fries and biscuits because we were going to be walking around afterwards. If I had gotten those sides, we would've needed to sleep lunch off before visiting WLU.

The chicken's batter was very crisp and crunchy. It was quite salty though. More so than usual. As for the chicken, it was spicy and juicy, but there wasn’t much flavour after the heat went away. Maybe we were unlucky and got a mediocre batch.

It would’ve been difficult to eat the salty chicken if we didn’t bring some bread. But it wasn’t just any ordinary bread. No, no. It was half a caramelized onion potato dill dynamite loaf that I brought along. I had just bought it from Art Is In the previous day at the Bayshore Farmers' Market. The moist chunks of fluffy potato in the bread tamed the salty chicken breading remarkably well.

The dynamite loaf was easily polished off. I wish I had brought more bread. It wasn’t nearly enough. Andrew began getting shifty half-way through lunch. He was pumped.

Once we finished filling our bellies at Popeyes, we joined up at WLU and did a full campus tour. The small campus reminded me of Humber. All the buildings were so close and the people involved in running the tours were very welcoming and helpful. WLU gave off a small, tight-knit community vibe. I kind of wish I was the one going to WLU. Andrew, have a great time at WLU! We won't be that far away... just a quick text or Skype call away.