My youngest daughter Mary spent the last year in graduate school at the University of Kentucky. My wife and I went with her on an apartment hunting trip a year ago. We were able to find a reasonably priced apartment that wasn’t far from campus. The apartment complex was gated which gave us a sense of security about where she was moving. She was also within walking distance of a couple of candy shops. There was one literally a couple of doors down from her apartment building. The other one was around the corner and would have been a bit of a stretch for walking. But Mary likes to walk, and it would have been reasonable for her. That candy shop is a strip mall that has several other stores including a Save A Lot grocery store. A sign outside of this grocery declared that it had the “Best Fried Chicken in Lexington”. We thought this was a bold statement for a relatively low-profile grocery store that might otherwise go unnoticed. It also seemed unlikely that in Kentucky, a place that people associate with Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of the highest profile chicken restaurants in the world, a discount grocery store chain would have the best chicken you could get in town. There had to be some place better. Because of the pandemic, family never made any trips just to visit so we never got a chance to try it out.
Until a few weeks ago when we were back in Lexington for her next move. We arrived on a Friday and packed the moving van with plans to move on Saturday. Our son was helping with the move, so he and I drove the van to a hotel to check in while Mary and my wife went to find food for us. We decided that this would be a perfect time try out the fried chicken from the Save A Lot grocery. When they came back to the hotel, they informed us that this Save A Lot grocery had closed. We thought that if they actually had the best fried chicken in Lexington, the good people of Lexington would have kept them in business with fried chicken sales. Mary and my wife decided to stop by Kentucky Fried Chicken to get our evening meal. I’ve been to Lexington a few times in my life, but I think that trip was the only one where I ate fried chicken. So for me, the best fried chicken in Lexington Kentucky is from KFC. But I will always be curious about the fried chicken from Save A Lot.
I thought that before I shared this story with everyone, it might be worth it to do a little research and see if there was anything to the claim that this was the best fried chicken in Lexington Kentucky. A quick Google search indicated that several news outlets in Lexington carried stories of this Save A Lot grocery closing shortly after Mary arrived there and lamenting that the best chicken in Lexington Kentucky would no longer be available. My favorite was a video of the lady who made this chicken. She said soaking it in salt water overnight gave it “flavor down to the bone”. She also said you take the out of the water and “flare” it before you cook it. I finally understood that she was saying “flour”.
So, I am now disappointed that I never had a chance to try this legendary chicken.
