Sacto Chicken Co.

So Sacto chicken wasn’t worth the drive from Southside Park. It was Okay. The chicken was tasty, but as Bön-​a-​fide Texan, nothing I would write home about. The price was meh for the value. The best was the festival (Jamaican sweet bread). I haven’t had one of those since I lived in New York.
Thanks for the nostalgia Sacto Chicken. I’ll keep lookin for the fried awesomeness.

I used to go here on Sundays when they had mango chutney chicken wings, but it seems like they never have the mango wings anymore. It used to be good until they started using huge wings, I’ve never seen free range wings this large… read into it all you want.suspect. I don’t care for the sides. The fried chicken is very good, but the jerk chicken was not good. The price increased too!
Overall it used to be good…

The bright orange stand has been beckoning me for quite some time now but I never stopped by because of the shady neighborhood and the tiny parking lot. Seriously, worst parking ever. But they had a Groupon deal.
Glad I bought a Groupon. The family meal was a whopping $ 33 for 12 piece, 1 side, and 6 festival breadsticks. But let me tell you son! The food was legit.
* Fried Chicken: almost like a naked fry with seasoning. Chicken was so juicy and tender. Pieces were decent sized.
* Jerk Chicken: dry; not as juicy as the fried chicken. Except for the breast, wings and drumsticks are puny. Just your average chicken that you would bbq on the grill. No flavor unless you dip in the sauce.
* Festival: damn these were good! Have you ever eaten a corndog and wished there wasn’t a dog? Well I did and here it is. Dreams do come true kids. It tasted exactly like corndog batter. Shaped in little breadstick form the size of a hermaphrodite’s secret down below.
* Mac n Cheese: hells yeah! Cavatappi pasta! My personal favorite for mac and cheese. Perfectly al dente, even when I reheated it at home. Cheese sauce is kinda generic but still had a nice cheesy flavor
* Jerk sauce: uhh. yum! It was like a sweet, tangy bbq with tons of spices, but not spicy at all.
* BBQ sauce: smoky, tangy. Leans towards the tangy side, which is borderline citrus-​y.
I have to admit. this place surprised me. Mixed reviews, change of ownership; I wasn’t expecting much. But now I wouldn’t mind venturing into their narrow crappy parking lot to get a meal. It only took about 10 mins for me to get my huge order. Not too bad.
oh and I HAVE to mention the plastic chairs. The patio seating looks run down and outdated. I took a seat on their black plastic chairs and what the heebie jeebie?!! The seat flexed to my butt shape. Whoa, comfy. So if you have big butts and you cannot lie, these seats were made for you. Eat some chicken, twerk the seat.

Nothing fancy, order at the window type place with some solid chicken options and some pretty decent wings too. Love the Festival Bread (fried cornbread), but was very sad when I went the first time and they had run out :(Sad again the next day when I went back and the dude didn’t even offer make up for missing the day before by giving them to me then. Oh well.
Both days I ordered a plate of fried chicken and another plate of jerk chicken that my girlfriend and I shared. Sides included mac’n’cheese, greens, and sweet-​potato fries. the Mac’n’Cheese was pretty good, with the noodles done al dente and covered in a cheese sauce. The greens were «absolutely amazing» the first day, and «not that good» the next day… not sure what happened there. And lastly, the sweet-​potato (yam) fries were soggy and gross, don’t recommend those.
The chicken was pretty good overall, except on the second day, where the jerk chicken was incredibly dry. I had it the first day and it was pretty good, but the second day it was inedible from being so dry. The fried chicken was very good both days, and went great with the hot sauce. Speaking of sauce, their jerk chicken sauce was very weird, and could definitely use some adjustments. Remember, its a dipping sauce at that point, and should be made for taste, I feel like that’s what they use to cook the chicken with, but it just doesn’t work for a dipping sauce.
Overall, this place gets 2.5 stars from me, and I’ll round up to 3. Yes I recommend the place, but there is definitely some inconsistencies going in on that kitchen that are somewhat troubling.
Next time I need to get a freeze. heard they’re amazing.

I bought a Groupon to try this place, and am really glad that I did, because I would have been EXTREMELY unhappy if I had to pay full price for this meal.
The chicken was good and it was cooked to order, but the Mac N Cheese was BLAH and the ‘Festival’ corn dodger was sweet but greasy. I can’t imagine how these other reviews have been so gracious
I used up the Groupon and spent a little more by buying an addl. side and a large? lemonade that was supposed to be freshly squeezed (tasted like instant), but had to ask for the lemonade while I waited. There were only two other people waiting when I got there at 1:30 so I figured it would be a quick order as they have «Fast» right in their logo. Nope! About 10 minutes after I paid, I was informed that fresh chicken needed to be made and it would be another 11 minutes.
I was then asked if I minded waiting; what else was I going to do? They already had my money so I had no choice since the Groupon was already redeemed over the phone.
A total of 35 minutes by the time I finally got my food. I guess FAST has a different definition to them; they must be from the south ;o}
All in all I spent more than I would have (even with the Groupon) I wont be going back.

I really try to support small businesses, but in so doing they have to realize they have a smaller margin for error. What the small business is saying is that they are capable of doing it better than the chains, but in the case of SWC today they’ve completely missed the mark. First off, you make it a point to have an abundance of the one item that sets you apart (jerk wings) and on Superbowl Sunday no less. Hell, you even went so far as to make an infomercial highlighting ‘em. I showed up 45 minutes after you opened and the first thing out of the cashier’s mouth was «we don’t have any jerk wings». I was a little disappointed but I still dropped $ 40 on wings and sides. The irritating thing is the wings I got were no better than something I could’ve grabbed at Raley’s deli, cost 2 and a half times more, and took 35 minutes to make. That ain’t cool.

Ive been a Wingstop regular forever, but after discovering this hidden gem I have a new fave. The collard greens and festival.(fried cornbread) are addicting!
I waited about 15 – 20 minutes, same time that I wait at Wingstop and the food was better.

I had an awkward experience. There was only one person handling the food and the cooking on this Saturday afternoon. I didn’t care, but what I didn’t expect was a nonchalant attitude from the lady, as if my business didn’t matter to her.
Me: (No hello from her, just a stare) «…So I’ll have the four piece fried chicken. And, the sides, what’s the sizes on those?»
Lady: «Huh? Oh… yeah.»
Me: «So are the price differences for the sides an indicator for small, medium, and large?»
Lady: «Oh yeah. You ordered a plate so you get a free small side.»
I just laughed to myself and picked a small mac and cheese and a medium collard greens. She told me it’d be 12 minutes since she’d have to cook the chicken fresh, which I replied no worries.
30 minutes later I finally got my food. As I watched her finish up my order I noticed some alarming things:
1) I paid with cash. I didn’t see her wash her hands before handing my food, nor did she slip on any gloves while cooking. She also had to stop several times to help two customers who showed up five minutes apart after me.
2) After she put my sides into Styrofoam containers she placed them into a hot unit which I’m assuming keeps the food warm since the light bulbs in that unit was red. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if the food wasn’t in a Styrofoam container and covered with a plastic lid. Doesn’t this cause chemicals from the plastic and Styrofoam to leech into the food?
I took my food home and broiled them in the oven. Now the flavor of the chicken was good. I had a mix of dark and white meat and they were moist. The batter wasn’t too salty so I was happy about that. I decided to shrug off my paranoia and taste the sides. The mac and cheese was «meh» because I didn’t taste cheese, just butter. The collards were on the sweet side but I appreciated seeing the bits of pork and onions. If the batter on the chicken was thicker and more crunchy I would’ve been satisfied. Overall a disappointing experience for $ 17; I threw away the sides and chopped up the chicken for my dogs.

I have been coming to Merlino’s since I was a kid, so when I found out they re-​opened as a fried chicken spot AND they still were selling freezes, I couldn’t wait to try them.
Sadly, I wasn’t as thoroughly impressed as I thought I would be. Because chicken is their specialty, I expected it to be the highlight of my meal, however, the chicken had a burnt taste like it had been fried in old/​dirty oil. Ironically, the chicken was actually seasoned well, but it was overpowered by the burnt taste left behind after every bite. The festival was average, not bad for a free side, and the fries were cooked and seasoned well. The highlight of my meal was the mac & cheese, it was creamy and cheesy and had good flavor.
Everything was just ok, and I probably would give them a second chance just to try something else on their menu, or at least stop by to grab a nostalgic Merlino’s Freeze.

I consider myself a relatively hard-​to-​impress person. Not how I intend to live my life, it’s just how I am.
This place impressed me.
I walked up to the cute little orange stand, and placed my order. The cashier girl was nice. After I paid, I went and sat down at one of the round orange tables. Then the guy that was cooking in the back told me that he had to make a new batch of mac n’ cheese, which I ordered as a side dish to my two piece leg ad thigh fried chicken plate, and also that he was out of drumsticks for the fried. He offered to give me two thighs and that was fine by me. He also mentioned that it would be about 12 minutes for the mac n’ cheese, and that he’d be more than happy to give me 2 other sides. I declined, and he STILL offered me at least a drink.
After about 10 minutes, he called me order, thanked me for waiting, and I walked back to my car with my food. I opened my mac n’ cheese and took a bite. This is where the hard-​to-​impress part comes in.
This was literally the best mac n’ cheese I have ever had.
And the chicken? I ranked it #2 in the top ten of my mental «best fried chicken» list.
I will definitely be back. Soon.

I went to get some take out at 6pm on a Tuesday. They had no jerk chicken, no coleslaw, and no customers. I got the 8pc hot wings and a side of collard greens for $ 9 and some change. The hot wings were nothing special. The collard greens were a little spicy, yet somehow still boring. They threw in one of those cornbread things, which was gummy/​doughy.
The staff was nice, but the food was meh.

Used to be a 5-​star for the wings and sides, but ever since it seems like new ownership has taken over, Sacto has become an over-​priced, ordinary wing stop.
The website still has their old prices listed… and when questioned about the recent hike, I was told it was because the chicken is now free range… which it always was, but no longer seems to be the case. Wings were much larger in size than they used to be and sauce didn’t taste quite the same nor were the wings well covered in sauce. I have a pretty strong feeling that there is some false advertisement going on, because never in my life have I seen free range wings that large.
This place used to be my all time favorite and I would bring visitors here everytime and get a sure fire rave about the food, but the new management has turned Sacto into a place that I, unfortunately will no longer be giving my business to. If you want to pay too much for ordinary food you can get anywhere, be my guest.

Disgusting. Over priced. Cold.
The chicken was a joke. I thought my husband brought home hot wings– turns out it was a 4 piece jerk chicken meal.
Cornbread tasted like burnt grease.
Mac and cheese was cold. Noodles were hard and had a funky smell and taste.
The cold slaw was blah. The texture, smell and taste were off.
I was so disappointed with this place. We drove by the other day and it had such curb appeal. Love the logo and colors.
Overall disappointing experience. For the price we paid it was such small portions and tasted unappetizing. Too bad, it looked like it had such potential.

Sometimes the four-​star-​reviewed establishments are places I’d return to far more often than a 5 star. It has to due with a lot of factors like accessibility and price, and of course, in the case of eateries, the food. The food here is, for the most part, fantastic. It’s deep fried chicken just like my non-​existent southern grandma used to make!
The stand itself is really just a little corner lot with a collection of tables and chairs out front across from the UC Davis Med Center. The folks behind the counter are friendly and the menu is basic. I got the four-​piece half fried/​half jerk, which was really more like three pieces because two were super tiny little wings. The fried chicken was as I hoped — crispy and amazing without being really greasy like so many other places. The jerk was also very flavorful and especially so when dipped in the side of sweet jerk sauce. The collared greens had good texture but didn’t taste like much more than a salty brine. My friend said the coleslaw was also very dry.
If not for my health, I’d be back here whenever possible. For now, I’ll think of this as my occasional deep fried treat.
Bonus: It’s all free range chicken!

Yes, it’s basic, but they do it so well!
Small stand — a few outside tables, the best chicken around plus utterly amazing/​addicting cornbread fritters = a fantastic lunch or an easy dinner.
Personally, I liked the jerk chicken over the regular fried (flavor!!), and was made very happy with my greens which were a «seasonal item». I wish they would always have some green on the menu — seems like a staple to me — but am thrilled that the cornbread fritters are a mainstay at Sacto Chicken. I had never seen cornbread prepared as they do here and it is delicious and wonderful and addicting and I want some now (like for realz).
I was sad to see the Orange Freeze place go, but am really pleased by its replacement. Sacto Chicken makes great food and I am happy they have moved in! (Also, check their logo — it (like the whole place) is very well done, a notch above the rest.)

Definitely improved on everything I ate today! I’m so happy because the staff is very friendly and deserve a better rating than my original 2 stars.
I had the 8 piece wings ($ 5.95) with a side of mac n cheese ($ 1.50). Yes, the wings are tiny but taste awesome! Perfectly seasoned and came with a spicy hot sauce for dipping. The mac n cheese was outstanding! A creamy white bechamel cheese sauce coats the al dente curly macaroni noodles. Yummy! Even the carnival was moist and flavorful.
I’m ready to try more stuff on the menu!

Always willing to give a new chicken place a shot, especially one that’s willing to do something besides Southern fried chicken (just not a fan) so this review will just be about the jerk chicken.
Unfortunately, the jerk chicken here just isn’t very good. The chicken itself was fine, but there really wasn’t much to the jerk seasoning. It wasn’t particularly hot or flavorful. The only flavor that really came through was smoke from the wood chips. There was an incredibly strong smokey flavor and odor to the chicken and, with the lack of flavor from the spices, unfortunately all I ended up tasting was smoke. I’ve come twice and each time it was the same.
However, what I can’t fault are their sides. Festival — the fried cornbread fritters — are ridiculously good. Lightly sweet and gritty-​fluffy inside, crisp on the outside. I’ve never had anything like them but could honestly eat a dozen of them by themselves without thinking. The Rice and Peas — seasoned rice and red beans — I originally thought would be more like Louisiana Red Beans and Rice, but it’s actually much drier. They’re very mild and work well as an accompaniment to the chicken.
The Hot Sacto sauce isn’t very hot — more of a mild-​to-​medium — but it’s got a good sour tanginess — really added good flavor the the jerk chicken to offset some of the smokiness.
I may come back and try their fried chicken with extra Sacto Sauce just to get another helping of Festival. The prices are reasonable, especially given the high quality of chicken they use. The location is a bit hard to find at first but you won’t miss it afterwards — it’s a bright orange shack. The employees there have been friendly every time.
Just a reminder that Sundays are Wing Day. So if you want a chicken besides wings, best to come another day.

I have always passed by this spot ever since it opened about 7 weeks ago or so! I always was curious about it, but was not convinced till I read my fellow Unilocalers rant and rave about the chicken. I just absolutely love chicken, so on my lunch break I dragged a couple of coworkers and head towards Sacto Chicken Co.
I ordered the chicken wings which comes with 8 wings, a medium serving of the mac & cheese, an order of the festival (5 pieces of cornbread), and a fresh «homemade» lemonade. My coworker ordered the BBQ chicken sandwhich which I got to try as well.
Let me tell you, the chicken wings were mighty delicious. They were marinated and spiced just right! The best part about it was the red hot sauce that came with it. OMG, I love heat, and it went perfectly with the wings! The mac and cheese was fresh and tasty, but nothing too out of the ordinary — but still GOOD! IT was a great pairing with the wings. I can’t say I’ve ever really enjoyed cornbread, but their festival was sweet and delicious! I could describe it as corndog-​like, but without the dog? Haha! Great, nonetheless! The lemonade was made just right and was refreshing to wash down all the delicious food!
The customer service was good. The people who worked there were friendly and welcoming!

so first off I love the name Sacramento chicken company. It’s a great name, the problem is with such a fantastic name the chicken had better be good or else they are destined for failure.
Here’s what I had I sampled the festival bread the jerk chicken and the macaroni and cheese.
It seemed a pretty fair price. The jerk chicken came with two sides which they allowed me to combine two servings of macaroni and cheese and a free piece of bread. That ran around 11 bucks.
They had a small but complete menu that offered some sandwiches and some interesting sides but going by Unilocal reviews I decided to stick with the macaroni and cheese.
I got the chicken home and it was pretty good the chicken was moist and cooked well the jerk was cool but nothing spectacular. I was definitely not disappointed but I was not blown away.
The festival bread was okay, I was expecting a little more with a name like festival. But who knows maybe this is some type of bread I never had. It wasn’t exactly a party in my mouth though.
I will say this the macaroni and cheese was fantastic and the people serving the food and taking orders were great.
Overall wasn’t that impressive but definitely a place worth going to. I will go there again as I am curious about some of their sandwiches and their fried chicken.
I really did like the fact that they were playing good reggae not crappy reggae over the loudspeakers. It’s set for a nice pleasant atmosphere. The place also was pretty clean for a chicken stand. Also extra credit for using grain fed free range local chickens.

Watch out Y’all, there’s a new jerk in town!
I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve been waiting for this place to open up, and lucky for me, I just happened to be in the neighborhood for lunch when they did!
I guess this used to be a Merlino’s freeze, so there is no dining room. You walk up and order from the window, and they have about 4 tables and 5 or 6 bar stools you can sit at. The tables are the perfect spot for lunch on a nice fall afternoon!
Got the half chicken meal, which came with two sides. The sides were pretty decent (Mac and cheese, and rice and peas), but I came here for the chicken, and it did not disappoint! They let me get half fried chicken and half jerk chicken, and both were tender, juicy, and delicious!
The fried chicken had a light crisp to it, and although it seemed like it was only lightly seasoned, something about it is absolutely delicious, and I found myself wanting more of it as soon it was gone.
The Jerk chicken was also super tender, and had a really good seasoning on it. I got half way through the jerk chicken before I even realized there was a side of the actual jerk sauce. WOW! This is my favorite jerk sauce in town! Next time I’m getting a few extra sides of the sauce!