Mid-Michigan Dining

• 601 W. Saginaw Street
• Lansing, MI 48933
• (517) 267-3813
• No Known Website
• No Online Menu

Chicken and Fish Express on Saginaw Street in Lansing.

I had to work downtown early.  Well, early for me.  9:00 is still a couple hours before I usually get up, so getting my butt out of bed and downtown isn’t easy.  It was a short day with my job finishing up a little after 1:30.  I had a few Tim Horton’s doughnuts for breakfast,but that was it, so I was starving.  Chicken has been all the rage and a few months ago, someone told me about a chicken place in a Marathon Station.  Since it wasn’t too far from downtown, I decided to check it out.

This wasn’t the first time I had stopped in to the Chicken & Fish Express on Saginaw Street.  A few weeks ago, I decided to stop, but was really confused and ended up leaving.  The store is connected to the Marathon Station, but the businesses aren’t really connected.  Sure, there’s a door to move between the two businesses, but it’s blocked from both sides.  Chicken & Fish Express has a separate entrance on Pine Street side of the building.  When I stopped a couple weeks ago, it didn’t look like the place was open.  The door moved when I pushed it, but there was no one inside and I didn’t see anything behind the counter, so I left.

Chicken and Fish Express isn’t the most inviting restaurant in the world.  They’re not going to win any awards for atmosphere.  In fact, I probably wouldn’t stop on a dark night when the moon was new.  The restaurant is carry-out only.  When you walk in, you come in to a very narrow area that is seperated from the kitchen by bullet proof glass.  Above the counter is a menu board with a few options.  There was a menu taped to the glass that had a few more options.  To me, it looked like they pretty much only do wings.  Not Buffalo wings, but whole chicken wings.  I didn’t realize that and I ordered 20 wings which was advertised on the window.  I thought I was getting 20 hot wings, not 20 whole wings.  The guy working asked if I wanted spicy or mild.  I chose the spicy and watched as he filled up two to-go containers of wings. 

Chicken and Fish Express next to the Marathon Station on Saginaw Street.

The cost was just over $10.50.  Since the kitchen area is separated from the order area by bullet proof glass, the guy working put my bag of chicken in a little turntable contraption and spun it around to me.  I tossed the chicken in the backseat and headed home.  It smelled so good and I couldn’t wait to get home to dig in.

J hadn’t left for work yet, so I decided to share with her.  The wings were much larger than regular chicken wings and they were very crunchy.  The skin was delicious and there was just enough spice to give the chicken a kick, but not enough that you need a glass of milk to eat them.  J said she thought they were even better than Popeye’s which is borderline blasphemous in my house.  I do have to agree though.  This chicken was really good.  We polished off one container in no time and sat looking at the other.  We didn’t need it, but we both wanted it.  We were good and shoved it in the fridge for lunch tomorrow.

Who would have expected it from a restaurant that looked more like a prison visiting area than a chicken joint?  Chicken & Fish Express isn’t a place I would send J alone, but it’s a place that will work it’s way into our regular chicken rotation.