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I'm John Seymour co-owner of sweet chick
today we're here at our newest location
in Long Island City Queens the original
restaurant opened about five years ago
in the news Berg I had heard the story
about how chicken waffles was invented
in New York in Harlem in the jazz clubs
in the 20s a jazz musician went into the
kitchen late night after a set didn't
know everyone at breakfast or dinner and
the chef was like I have some fried
chicken leftover and I can make some
waffles and I didn't necessarily think
there was any kind of modern
representation of it in New York and you
know I took that and I was like we've
100% African Queens
because Queens to me is really New York
you know there's such a cross-section of
cultures here you really have everybody
who lives in Queens and it's really a
great representation of what New York is
and so far I mean we've been open two
days and Queens has really embraced this
fried chicken is obviously a southern
thing and you know I'm not a southern
guy but I really wanted to get a really
authentic so their fried chicken
experience we use an antibiotic free
hormone free chicken raised in
Pennsylvania we get the chickens in
whole butcher them ourselves so
obviously they're super fresh and then
it's the brine we do a sweetie brine
salt pepper paprika garlic powder couple
other things well the brine is really
what's going to infuse the flavors that
you want to have into that chicken and
once the chicken is fully brined we're
gonna go into our dredge and we take the
chicken fully dredge we drop it in the
fryer when we first started out trying
our chicken we were using you know open
fryers and doing some research and found
out about these pressure fryers it locks
in the moisture and that blonde that we
you know we worked so hard to get and it
keeps that you know chicken just that
much more moist everybody you know got
something that they like more the
chicken or the waffle I hear a lot that
our waffles are the greatest waffles
you've ever had and that comes from you
know a lot of trial and error as well
but one of the things that makes all
waffles so special is that we whip our
egg whites to a stiff peak and when we
fold that into the batter
it really makes that waffle super airy
and fluffy you know I thought chicken
waffle could be a really great vehicle
for a lot of different flavors so we've
kind of taken that and ran with it so
two of our our most popular chicken
opposite for most people's order is the
General Tso's chicken waffle and one of
my favorites on the menu at the
Nashville hot chicken waffle you know if
you just want to add fun it is and step
it up a notch
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you know after finding out the chicken
and waffles was invented in Harlem I was
like really I always thought it was a
California thing being a native New York
and myself I was like to em you know
it's made its bones on the west coast
and so the idea behind sweet chick
itself was like let's let chicken waffle
be like kind of the star of the show and
really what we're about it's such like a
you know a comfort meal like it's really
kind of the quintessential comfort meal
you can eat it dates on night time and I
really wanted to build a place that
could bring in the community and I mean
then a day that's what sweet chick is
all about
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