Gus's Fried Chicken Comes to Roost in Santa Ana

Gus's Fried Chicken

102 North Sycamore St.

Santa Ana, CA 92701

I admit that chicken is not my favorite protein. I shy away from it in most cases. Chicken tacos are almost always bland. Chicken baked in wine was one of my least favorite things my mom made when I was growing up. Sorry, mom. I also had a math teacher in elementary school, Mr. Taravella, who always incorporated chicken into math problems. My low math grade more than likely added to my distaste for this choice of poultry.

One kind of chicken that I do seek out is fried chicken. It seems that whoever you talk to, they have their favorite spot to head to. I hear lots of love for Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant,  Popeye's, Two Birds in Irvine, and Holdaak, a spot in Orange, which I have now added to my list of places to try due to their glowing reviews on Yelp and other spots. For the record, before this visit, my top three fried chicken spots are Buttermilk, Crack Shack, and Reunion, which has locations in Laguna and Anaheim Hills. I was hoping that Gus's Fried Chicken could supplant one of these. Let's see if that would be the case.

Gus's started out modestly off  Highway 70 in Mason, Tennessee as Maggie's Short Order in 1973 with founding owners, Ms. Maggie and Napoleon Vanderbilt. After their passing in the early '80s, the restaurant was run by their only son, and his wife, Gus and Gertrude Bonner, who renamed it Gus's in 1984.

By the late '80s, the restaurant gained a lot of notoriety when it was listed as some of the best-fried chicken in the country by major magazines and news outlets. A second location in Memphis opened in 2001, and from there Gus's spread like wildfire. By my count, they now have 28 locations in 14 states, and they have no plans to stop there.

We decided to take advantage of the light weekend traffic and called in our order to the Santa Ana location while en route. We were quoted a time of twenty minutes, which would put us here right on time to get our food and head back home. This downtown Santa Ana outpost is located on the corner of First and Sycamore, right across from Original Mike's.

During regular times they offer waiter service, but with the current situation, we just paid for our meal at the register. The restaurant seemed a lot bigger than what I assumed from the outside. The menu at Gus's is pretty straight forward. A trio of starters, chicken plates, six sides, and five pies that you can get by the slice or have the option to buy the whole pie. We grabbed our food and headed for home as fast as we could because the aroma coming from the bags was so intoxicating. Let's see if the taste was as good as it smelled from the bags in the backseat.

We started off with Fried Pickles ($5). They were heavily breaded with a dill spear buried underneath and came with ranch dressing for dipping. I found the breading a bit too heavy and I think they were left in the fryer a minute or two too long. Not anything I'd probably get again. 

Katie will start off the entree portion of this review with her selection, the Four-Piece Tender Plate ($14). Katie has an issue with eating items off the bone, so I was not surprised she went with the tenders. These tenders were good-sized, made fresh, and were a nice departure from the overly processed ones that we have come to expect when getting tenders. They were juicy and had a tinge of spice to them, but nothing that would overpower. She opted to get honey mustard as her dip of choice. Plates come with coleslaw and baked beans as your sides but you can swap out your sides for a 50 cent upcharge. The baked beans were fine, a little on the sweet side which I guess is meant to counteract the slightly spicy batter of the chicken. The best of the sides that we tried was the Potato Salad. This was a very creamy version of potato salad, with big notes of dill and mustard coming through in each bite. This is the side to get here.

Now for what Gus's is famous for, their fried chicken. I went with the Three-Piece Dark Meat Plate ($12) which consisted of two thighs and a leg. The thighs here were very big with lots of meat on them. Like the tenders above, the meat was very juicy without being greasy. The breading had a nice spice to it and the crunchy texture was very pleasing. After a few bites, I could see why they get so much love for their fried chicken. I had wanted mac and cheese and greens for my sides, but they were out of greens on this early evening, so I went with double mac and cheese instead. The mac and cheese was sprinkled with plenty of paprika, but it could not spark anything flavor-wise for me. It's kind of what I imagine Kraft Mac and Cheese to taste like, a bit boring. Yes, I know, it's weird that I've never had the mac and cheese out of the blue box.

Out of the five varieties of pies that Gus's offers, the most interesting to me was the Chocolate Chess Pie ($5). This would be my maiden slice of chess pie, which is popular in the south. I'd describe it as very brownie-like, with a cracked top. Good, but not earth-shattering to me. I'd like to try their pecan pie with ice cream when I can eat here, so I won't have to worry about it melting on the way home.

The chicken at Gus's takes one of my top three spots for fried chicken in OC, joining Crack Shack and Buttermilk. The fried chicken is really that good, and I'd probably get a half chicken the next time I'm here so I can sample their white meat as well. The sides, with the exception of the potato salad, were all kind of just average. Prices were more than fair, with no plate going over the $15 threshold. If all chicken tasted like this, I might become a chicken fanatic after all. 

Out of five Blow Pops, (because this restaurant started in Tipton County, Tennessee, which is also home to where they make one billion Blow Pop's and other candies a year), five being best to zero being worst, Gus's Fried Chicken gets 3 Blow Pops.

For more information about Gus's Fried Chicken, head to their website here: http://gusfriedchicken.com/