- I ordered a family-style meal deal at Chick-fil-A for myself, my wife, and two kids.
- We spent about $50 for 10 chicken tenders, four sides, and four desserts. The tenders were great.
- Overall, the food wasn't bad, but I wouldn't say this was that great of a value for my family.
Recently, while running errands on a weeknight in Midtown Manhattan, my family of four stopped at Chick-fil-A.
Raising two kids on a fairly tight budget in New York City means making sacrifices. For us, that's cooking most of our meals at home and being choosy about where and when we dine out.
If I'm ordering my family dinner — especially from a fast-food chain in one of the culinary capitals of the world — it ought to at least be a decent value.
So, we tried one of the chain's family-style meal deals.
The meal was a bit harder to get than I expected.
Chick-fil-A's family-style meals include items and prices that vary by location, but they usually include a combination of mains, sides, and desserts.
The meals were prominently displayed on Chick-fil-A's online menu when I checked, but when I tried to order one at the counter, I was told I could not.
Instead, I had to download the app to order the 10-count Chick-fil-A Chick-n-Strips family-style meal, which was a little annoying. I already have plenty of apps on my phone, and this step felt unnecessary since I was prepared to order in person.
Our food was ready in a few minutes.
The meal I ordered cost $47.99 and came with 10 chicken strips, two orders of waffle fries, two orders of mac and cheese, two chocolate chip cookies, and two brownies.
It was ready in just a few minutes. We were dining in, but because I ordered on the app, it came packed up to go, sturdily packaged in a manageable-sized bag.
The chicken strips impressed us right away.
When you've got little kids, you can wind up eating a lot of stray chicken tenders.
In many cases, the breading is caked on and the chicken is overcooked to the point of chewiness. That was not the case at Chick-fil-A.
The strips were nicely salty and mildly seasoned, with a hint of crispiness in the breading and moist meat that tasted freshly cooked.
By the standards of fast-food chicken tenders, Chick-fil-A's get five out of five stars. My wife and I both thought the chicken strips were the best part of the meal.
One of our sides was waffle fries, which my kids liked more than I did.
Family meals at Chick-fil-A are available with sides in multiple configurations. We chose two orders of waffle fries and two orders of mac and cheese, but we could've switched up those ratios or swapped in a fruit cup.
The waffle fries were a hit with my kids, probably because they tend to like the saltiest part of any meal.
I was underwhelmed. I didn't think they had much flavor besides salt, and they weren't really crispy at all.
We were impressed by the mac and cheese.
The mac and cheese was a pleasant surprise.
It looked and tasted like it had been baked as a casserole — a homestyle mac and cheese with nice texture and flavor from the creamy sauce and chunks of browned baked cheese.
We had two different desserts to round out our meal.
All Chick-fil-A family meals available on the app come with two brownies and two chocolate chip cookies.
There's a nostalgic appeal to the desserts at Chick-fil-A, especially when you compare them to the garish, enormous sweets sold at popular cookie chains.
These treats seemed like something you might find at a school bake sale: Moderate portions and classic flavors.
My kids loved the fudgy gooeyness of the brownie, but my wife thought it just seemed a little underdone.
Our kids loved both of them.
The cookies had big chunks of melty chocolate and a nice combination of outer crunch and interior softness.
I didn't detect any of the artificial chewiness you can sometimes find in mass-produced cookies. Both desserts were huge hits with my kids.
Overall, I can't say I was particularly impressed by the meal's value.
I didn't think this meal was an especially good value.
Adding up the individual components — $23.49 for a 10-piece Chick-n-Strips, $3.85 each for medium waffle fries, $5.35 each for mac and cheese, $2.19 each for the cookies, $2.99 each for the brownies — comes to $52.25.
So, I saved less than $5 by going with a family meal.
Plus, this choice locks everyone in the family into the same meal (I would've preferred a spicy chicken sandwich).
After we added in two drinks (iced tea/lemonades) and a fruit cup (for our 7-year-old dabbling in vegetarianism), we spent about $65 on our dinner.
That's almost twice as much as it'd cost us to eat at a local pizzeria, and about exactly the same as we'd pay to eat our fill from a broader variety of options at a nearby Shake Shack, our usual go-to for quick, casual meals.
Even adjusting my expectations for the location in Midtown Manhattan (which tends to be expensive), the price felt high for what we got.
