All-You-Can-Eat (Gourmet?) Chicken

Rhode Island seems ripe for road trips lately. Not only did the Food Network’s Guy Fieri point his ’67 Camaro in our direction, visiting Louis, Liberty Elm and Crazy Burger for his show “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" (read more about that here), but the folks at Gourmet have also trekked to our fair state for their August Road Food column. The focus of this piece — “Big Bird in a Little State” is on family-style, all-you-can-eat chicken dinner places, a curious culinary tradition the Ocean State seems to claim as its own. The article, written by Jane and Michael Stern, highlights three Northern Rhode Island institutions: the Bocce Club Restaurant, Village Haven Restaurant and, of course, Wright’s Farm. The latter literally turns out 2,000 pounds of chicken a night. Yup, a literal ton.

The Sterns were blown away by the sheer volume of chicken consumed (let’s not forget the starch — bread, pasta, fries and roasted potatoes), the size of the dinner halls (Wright’s seats more than 1,200) and, most important, “how unspeakably good the chicken is.”

Out of the three places they visited, they declined to name a favorite. So that’s where we turn to you…. Where do you go to get your roast chicken fix?