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BEST SOUTHERN FRIED CHICKEN EVER! Carolinas vs.Tennessee

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One YouTuber drove three states deep into the South just to settle an argument about fried chicken — and Tennessee won by a landslide.

Strictly Dumpling creator Mike Chen wasn’t taking a scenic route. Driving cross-country from New York to Seattle, he built an entire leg of the trip around one question: who actually makes the best fried chicken in the South, the Carolinas or Tennessee? He hit legendary counters in North Carolina and South Carolina before rolling into Tennessee for the verdict.

• Chen drove from New York toward Seattle, detouring through North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee specifically to compare regional fried chicken.
• His Carolina stops included Price’s Chicken Coop in Charlotte and the regional chain Bojangles.
• The trip ends at the original location of Gus’s World Famous Hot Fried Chicken in Mason, Tennessee, which Chen calls arguably the best fried chicken he’s ever eaten.

The Carolinas Enter as the Favorite

Chen’s road trip treats the Carolinas as the home turf of Southern fried chicken tradition, and he doesn’t skip the obvious landmarks. Price’s Chicken Coop in Charlotte has spent decades as a cash-only, counter-service institution where the line often stretches out the door before lunch even starts. Pairing that against Bojangles — the regional staple most Carolinians grew up ordering from a drive-thru rather than a white tablecloth — gives Chen two very different takes on the same regional identity: one an old-school local legend, the other a fast-food chain that somehow still holds its own against it.

Price’s Coop and Bojangles Set the Bar

What separates the Carolina stops in Chen’s video isn’t just crispiness — it’s the contrast between a decades-old counter operation and a chain most people associate with drive-thru speed. Price’s Chicken Coop built its reputation on consistency and volume, frying to order and moving customers through fast without sacrificing crunch. Bojangles, meanwhile, represents how far Carolina-style seasoning traveled beyond a single storefront and into a regional fast-food identity that outsiders now recognize on sight.

Gus’s in Mason, Tennessee Closes the Debate

The trip’s final stop is where Chen makes his call. At the original Gus’s World Famous Hot Fried Chicken location in Mason, Tennessee, he finds a spicy, deeply seasoned bird with a crackling, reddish crust wrapped around meat he describes as intensely juicy — a combination he says beats everything he sampled in the Carolinas.

Arguably the best fried chicken I have ever had in my life.

That’s a notable claim from someone whose entire channel is built around sampling regional food across the country. Gus’s crust-to-juice contrast is the detail Chen keeps returning to — the kind of crackling exterior that shatters on the bite while the meat underneath stays practically dripping, a combination that’s harder to pull off than it sounds and one he says the Carolina stops simply didn’t match.

The Effectiveness of the Format

Chen’s road trip video isn’t a debate conducted from a studio — it’s built on driving hundreds of miles and eating in person, which is exactly the appeal for viewers who’d rather watch someone actually test a claim than argue about it online. It’s the same instinct that fuels stunt-driven creator content like World’s Largest Challenge! or World’s Most Dangerous Escape Room!, where the draw isn’t just the outcome but watching a creator fully commit to finding out firsthand.

Chen’s verdict leaves the Carolinas with plenty of defenders — Price’s Chicken Coop and Bojangles aren’t exactly underdogs — but on this trip, Gus’s original Mason storefront takes the win, crust and all.