The Chick-fil-A sandwich is one of the South’s greatest cultural contributions – right up there with Mississippi blues music, Tennessee-born filmmaker Quentin Tarantino and video vixen/Louisiana native Bobbie Brown. As magnificent eat as the Georgia-created Chick-fil-A is, in Huntsville there are local non-chain upgrades. Below are five fried chicken sandwiches I love from Huntsville restaurants.

COUNTRY BOY

Peppered Pig, 1305 Four Mile Post Road S.E. Ste. C, pepperedpig.net

You don’t need to know, as Hank Williams Jr. once sang, how to “skin a buck and run a trotline” to dig Peppered Pig’s Country Boy. A big sandwich with vibrant flavors and textures. Beer-battered fried chicken, smoky peppered bacon, melty Colby cheese, piquant collard greens and slippery sriracha mayo. Barely contained between two halves of a comfy roll. Bocephus would be proud.

COLONEL ANGUS

Goodland Pour House, 933 Bob Wallace Ave. S.W., goodlandph.com

A 2013 “Saturday Night Live” skit about the return of a Confederate Civil War hero, posited “Colonel Angus is an acquired taste.” Not so with Goodland Pour House’s fried chicken sandwich of the same name. You’ll like it right away. Tender bird smothered in pimento cheese, and outfitted with applewood smoked bacon, red onion, garlic pickles on a brioche bun.

FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH

Salt Smokehouse, 1300 Meridian St N. D-104, saltssmokehouse.toast.site

If a sandwich with Korean style fried chicken cooked by a Huntsville-via-Mexico chef is wrong, I don’t want to be right. Salt Smokehouse’s Rene Boyzo weaves pollo, sriracha oil, ginger coleslaw, pickles and potato bun into oh yeah. Umami for your mommy too.

SPICY CHICKEN SANDWICH

Blue Oak BBQ, 1000 Mid City Drive Unit 1, blueoakbbqhsv.com

What costs more than twice as much as a Chick-Fil-A and so worth it? Blue Oak BBQ’s spicy chicken sandwich. Fried thighs glazed with hot-sweet sauce, dressed with a couple pickles and north Alabama style white barbecue sauce, on a brioche bun. Pow. Founded in New Orleans, Blue Oak opened their second ever location in spring 2024, within echoes of Huntsville’s Orion Amphitheater.

HONEY BUTTER FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH

Domaine South, 200 West Side Square, domainesouth.com

Succulent fried chicken with delicate exterior crunch. Rich, house-made pimento cheese. Hot honey butter and two surfboard-shaped pickles. Bless this Domaine South sandwich’s bun because that’s a lot of messy yum to support. If each year you mourn the end of Chick-fil-A’s seasonal honey-pepper-piment-chicken-sandwich, prepare to touchdown dance.