Restaurant Caught Selling Popeyes Chicken Is Now Merchandising #Popeyesgate
SoCal restaurant Sweet Dixie Kitchen and its “Popeyegate” controversy was one of the hottest topics of interest last week, as folks learned that the brunch spot was reheating and selling chicken they sourced from a local Popeyes. Since then, Sweet Dixie has seemed to fully embrace their title of a Popeyes-purveying restaurant.
They’ve now created (at least one) menu items inspired by the controversy, and have even begun selling a Popeyesgate shirt.
Screenshot of Sweet Dixie Kitchen’s Instagram post showing the shirts
The shirts, in true Sweet Dixie Kitchen fashion, are going for $25 a pop, and some of the proceeds will go to the Ronald McDonald House charity for battered women, according to the restaurant.
In Facebook posts detailing more about the shirts and future plans, the restaurant also aims to “#ownit” more in the future by adding “new menu items” that were inspired by the Popeyesgate controversy.
Read Ken O.‘s review of Sweet Dixie Kitchen on Yelp
Screenshot of Ken O.’s Yelp review
Based on the above review from Yelp, however, it seems that the new items are just renamed versions of their previous Popeyes dishes. There’s the “#Popeygate,” still being sold for $13, and “The Addison,” Sweet Dixie’s $15 fast food fried chicken and waffles. The Addison’s name comes from Longbeachize’s Brian Addison, one of the other writers who extensively covered the original story.
Addison also got his own photos of the menu items, which shows one interesting change. Instead of the tomato jam and syrup that I sampled on Sweet Dixie’s chicken and waffles when I visited, the newly christened The Addison is now served with “homemade peach habanero sauce for a little spice.” Considering that the restaurant did say that they were making items inspired by #Popeyesgate, that sauce is likely a jab at Addison for his fiery article on the brunch spot.
It’s clear that Sweet Dixie Kitchen is fully embracing their title as the restaurant that sells Popeyes, and is now unabashedly ready to spread that to the rest of the world through both shirts and their new menu names.
Well played, Sweet Dixie. Well played, indeed.
