If you watched any of the early-morning news shows last week, you might have seen some live hits from the Bojangles on Donelson Pike where on-air personalities were learning about how the fast-food chain was upgrading its menu and testing out ideas exclusively in the Middle Tennessee market. Most of them concentrated on Bojangles’ flaky biscuits that require 49 separate steps to create, but they’ve been doing them that way for years.
Bojangles’ vice president of menu and culinary innovation, chef Marshall Scarborough, developed a truly innovative series of new products and procedures. I don’t do my best work within two hours of sunrise, so I waited until later in the day to sit down with the talented Johnson & Wales University graduate who has more than two decades of corporate culinary experience working with restaurants like Jack in the Box and Popeye’s.
Working out of a test kitchen in Charlotte, N.C., Scarborough and his team have developed new recipes for their menu that may well expand to the more than 750 Bojangles locations after a period of testing in their stores around Nashville. Even in the face of the great Fried Chicken Sandwich Wars that dominate national fast-food coverage, Bojangles has stayed committed to its flagship chicken biscuit, though one would expect that a sandwich couldn’t be too far off in the future.
Since 40 percent of Bojangles locations are not corporate-owned, Scarborough and his team not only have to come up with new products and procedures for their restaurants, they also have to help their franchises learn how to deliver them in their own markets. To that end, the chef is a stickler for education and travels the region working in kitchens, like the one at the long-lived Donelson location.
These aren’t high-tech, spotless kitchens like new-fangled Shake Shacks. They are spaces that look exactly like what they are, spartan workplaces that pump out astounding amounts of food using the sort of equipment you’d expect to see in a venerable meat-and-three. The Bojangles company does develop some specialty equipment to meet its own needs, but the main advantages are the ingredients, people and procedures.
That’s where Scarborough comes in. Working with focus groups, he recognized that people’s flavor expectations have changed. They still want the crispy fried chicken and flaky biscuits they’ve grown to love, but they also seek bolder flavors. Working with the company’s proprietary spice profile, Scarborough has developed a new procedure for both bone-in chicken and tenders that involves long marination that gives the chicken spice in both the juicy meat and the crispy crust.Â
Scarborough says that they considered adding a mild option. “We decided we had to be who we are," he explains. "We want to bring in customers who appreciate bolder flavors.” The new Bo’s Supreme Tenders are indeed more piquant that almost any other fast-food chicken you’ll find outside of a Nashville hot chicken shack, but they’ve also developed a house-made ranch that’s made with the same buttermilk they use in their biscuit recipe to help provide a little creamy cooling. The bone-in chicken is even spicier thanks to hours of marinating the fresh chicken parts before breading them twice and dropping them in the fryer. Scarborough says that he loves and appreciates Nashville hot chicken, but it’s not in the company’s plans to add that option.
Other fun items that Bojangles is trying out around town are some inexpensive cheesy biscuits with garlic, onion and herb flavors that pair nicely with fried chicken. They’re like pillowy hushpuppies of flavor and worth a try. Embracing the company's Southern culture, Scarborough also wanted to add a new dessert to the offerings. “What’s more Southern than banana pudding?” asks Scarborough rhetorically. “Our culinary North star is always figuring out how to stay authentically Southern with a modern twist.” To that end, he figured out how to make a hand pie with banana pudding and chocolate for a decadent treat with a crust that is almost like an egg roll.
Another item is a new version of Bo’s Chicken Biscuit, a handheld savory treat with an improbably large slab of fried chicken breast atop the buttery biscuit that can only be improved by adding pimento cheese. That option almost didn’t happen. “We launched pimento cheese as a limited-time offering in 2019,” explains Scarborough. “But the customers demanded we keep it. I think it’s a pretty darned good version!”
As much as I was impressed by the quality of the food coming out of that utilitarian kitchen, what I was really curious about was why the chain chose Nashville as the site for such an extensive menu testing that could bring a massive change to the entire company. Scarborough says, “Nashville is a city known for iconic Southern restaurants, and the diners here are used to high standards. We decided to exclusively test these items in and around Nashville because if we can succeed here, we know we can impress the rest of the country.”
They’ve been testing this menu for a few months now, bringing in focus groups and surveying customers. I’d bet that most of these items will eventually roll out to the rest of the region soon, but if you want to be among the first tastemakers to try out some darned fine fast-food chicken, drop by a local Bojangles while we’re still among the chosen ones. As Scarborough deservedly boasts, “We took everybody’s old favorites and made them better!”
