Back in the “old days”, which for the purposes of this post were the early 90s, we used to eat at a Tanner’s Chicken, at the corner of Indian Trail Road and Highway 29.  In fact, we ate there quite a lot.  Primarily because one of our sales guys ate nothing but steak or chicken fingers (and I thought I was the picky one).  As none of us could afford steak for lunch every day, we went where ever the chicken fingers were.  I hadn’t thought about that place until about three weeks ago, when, while driving back from lunch, I saw Tanner’s in Suwanee.  Today, trying to break the streak of Central and South American lunches, I headed out for chicken.

It’s a fairly large place (there’s a bar area on the right side of the entrance doors that’s about half as deep as the room I’m seated in) and there were three other parties, totaling ten folks, seated when I arrived.  Several sources on line refer to Tanner’s as a sports bar, and that probably is the best description of the feel.  Looking at the menu, I was studying the menu when the waitress returned and I asked about lunch specials -there wasn’t a “lunch menu, per se).  She told me about Tanner’s Best – two chicken fingers,  chicken ” lips” and fries.  I took the bait.

The plate arrived a few minutes later.  I reached for the ketchup – strike one.  Generic ketchup is always a turn off.  The fingers were battered and fried like fish and chips, moreso than the typical breaded chicken fingers.  The fried crust seemed to be wrapped around the finger more than attached to it.  The sauce it was served with was their own honey mustard.  It was very sweet, as was the barbecue sauce that I asked for.  Real ketchup would have made everything better.

The chicken lips are actually fried spring rolls filled with shredded chicken, cheeses and buffalo sauce.  Much better than the tenders and without need of a dipping sauce.  

It was an okay lunch, but like much of the early 90s, is better left in the past.