Popeyes recently continued its campaign to promote its upgraded chicken tenders, offering them as part of a $9.99 Tenders Deal. The chain upgraded the tenders in July in a push for consistency, and celebrated in the Hamptons and with a delivery deal.
Popeyes set the chicken sandwich trend back in 2019, but they’re not first or alone in this tenders focus: Cousins Subs has a new kids meal with a chicken tender option. Detroit Wing Company has a new Crispy Chicken Melt LTO with fried tenders on it. Chick-fil-A is testing a spicy version if its tenders — sorry, I mean Chick-n-Strips. Golden Corral has new chicken tenders in peach sauce. KFC is throwing tenders into its Popcorn Chicken Big Box. Sonic has a new Garlic Parmesan Ranch Crispy Tender Wrap.
And that was just the tender news of July.
According to Restaurant Business sibling company Technomic, chicken tenders appeared on 40.1% of restaurant menus in the second quarter, up 0.1% over the past year, so perhaps it is merely the marketing that got more persistent in 2026. Chicken sandwiches are on 51.3% of menus, but that’s down 0.8% over the past year.
So why this apparent emphasis? The chicken wars (a term I hate, by the way, but it seems to be sticking around) have been ongoing since at least 2019, when Popeyes introduced its now-famous sandwich. But the focus on tenders is fairly new, perhaps an extension of last year’s wrap craze.
Technomic predicted this in its 2026 Global Foodservice Annual Trends report, published late last year, telling operators to expect “a lot more breaded chicken snacks.”
Not only are chicken strips themselves trending, but according to Technomic, they drive the highest overall visit satisfaction of any other chicken entrée, which could explain this whole trend. Interestingly, that’s especially true at Chick-fil-A, home of the original chicken sandwich.
So, have chicken tenders officially outpaced chicken sandwiches long term? Nah. According to Technomic, in 2025, 22.5% of recent guests at chicken-specific chains ordered a “chicken strips/nuggets entrée,” down slightly from 22.7% the year prior. (I will be floored if this number does not increase in 2026. Seriously, check on me in the first quarter.) Chicken sandwiches were ordered by 18.8% of those consumers, up from 17.8%.
Frankly, I’m more interested to see what happens next. We’ve gone from sandwiches to wraps to tenders. At what stage do we run out of menu items to reinvent? Technomic shows fried chicken coming up fast behind chicken sandwiches, so that’s where I’ll put my money for 2027.