Can You Still Get Bone-In Fried Chicken At Hardee's?

We've covered the best fried chicken restaurants in every state, and you are undoubtedly familiar with the big national chains, like KFC and Popeyes. When you think of bone-in fried chicken, your mind probably doesn't go to Hardee's, which is best known today for its burgers. And, yet, at a handful of isolated locations in the United States, you can get exactly that — and it turns out that Hardee's has a chicken history we never knew about!

The Hardee's menu doesn't mention bone-in fried chicken on its list of poultry specialties, although it offers both original and spicy chicken tenders. And yet, on social media, there are scattered reports of fried chicken being served in the Carolinas ... both Instagram and YouTube users have clocked it. Furthermore, they report that the chicken is good! Anecdotal reports state that you can get a full eight-piece box of mixed chicken, a three-piece wing meal, or many other permutations of chicken dinners and combos, which are served with delicious sides like mashed potatoes, gravy, and biscuits.

Come to find out, Hardee's got into the fried chicken business some 30+ years ago. A vintage commercial from the ballpark of 1992 advertises a cardboard box of perfectly golden fried chicken. It's interesting that Hardee's may have initially put fried chicken on the menu in the early '90s to go toe-to-toe with KFC, which was previously known as just Kentucky Fried Chicken, given that KFC buffet locations are another near-extinct cryptid of the fast food world, a rare sighting that merits special attention.

Once upon a time, in the early '90s, the parent company behind Hardee's bought out the Roy Rogers brand of fast food restaurants for $365 million and utilized the Roy Rogers recipe for bone-in fried chicken. Internet lore states that this chicken was top-of-the-line. Over on social media forum Reddit, customers of a certain age harbor fond memories of family dinners brought home from Hardee's. "It might be heresy, but I greatly preferred Hardee's fried chicken to KFC back in the day," one commenter reported. "Hardee's had something like a spicy kick to it and it was always extra crispy." On that same thread, there are joking anecdotes about folks not believing that Hardee's ever sold fried chicken, positing that it could be the Mandela effect in action.

Hardee's discontinued fried chicken on a national level before the turn of the millennium, choosing to focus its corporate efforts on juicy handhelds and boneless chicken. If you find yourself in the South, however, it might be worth some sleuthing to see if the Hardee's near you has some of the mythical bone-in fried chicken, as it is alleged to be quite tasty. Facebook users suggest that, if you download Hardee's app, you can search by location to see if "fresh fried chicken" is listed as an option. If nothing else, you will have potential internet bragging rights for having unearthed a rare find.