Inside PDQ, Long Island's New Chicken Restaurant

FARMINGDALE, NY — PDQ, a chicken restaurant, is slated for the grand opening of its first New York location on Sunday, July 21 in Farmingdale.

The Tampa Bay-based franchise held its Farmingdale soft opening on Monday, July 15, which means customers can now head over to its location at 1004 Broadhollow Road for a variety of chicken-based items. Tenders, nuggets, sandwiches and salads are all available, as well as hand-spun shakes and desserts for those looking to satisfy a sweet tooth.

Dean Poll and Thomas J. Fanning, Sr. are the partners leading the charge into the local market, covering areas such as Long Island, New York City, Connecticut and more.

Long Islanders are already familiar with other chicken-based franchises: Kentucky Fried Chicken, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and Chick-fil-A to name a few. Now, People Dedicated to Quality is throwing its proverbial hat in the ring, and Fanning believes the restaurant is earmarked to stand out among its competitors.

"I think the name says it: People Dedicated to Quality," he told Patch. "As far as the space goes, I think there’s enough room for a new player in town. I think the freshness of what we do, no antibiotics in the chicken, I think we’re going to knock the socks off. And we’re open seven days a week."

Fanning also believes the location of the business is ideal: he called Broadhollow Road the busiest thruway north and south on Long Island.

He also said the chicken tenders are what PDQ is known for down in its southern roots. However, he's predicting another menu item could become Long Island's favorite.

"We’re going to see if [the tenders] make a mark up here, because everybody loves a chicken sandwich," he said. "The chicken is unbelievable."

There are six types of sandwiches on the PDQ menu: Crispy Chicken, Buffy Bleu, Cali Club, Grilled Chicken, Honey Butter and Pimento Crunch. The Pimento Crunch features a large crispy chicken breast, pimento cheese, lettuce, sea salt potato chips and bacon.

The available shakes range from the traditional vanilla, chocolate and strawberry to the out-of-the-box Oreo, mint Oreo, Heath and Reese's Cup.

Available dipping sauces are ranch, buffalo bleu, creamy garlic, honey BBQ, sweet Sriracha, chipotle BBQ and honey mustard. The franchise said sauces are never more than a few days old.

PDQ also caters, with its catering menu featuring the six aforementioned sandwiches, as well as party platters of tenders and nuggets. Salads are also available.

Additionally, PDQ has a few other features designed for customer convenience: a face-to-face drive-thru as opposed to a machine, a sink outside the restroom and a Cornhole set out front.

Fanning said the Farmingdale PDQ, which employs around 70 people, is using the six-day period between its soft and grand openings to work on two things: the speed of the customer's experience and employees' smiles.

"We always want our people smiling, because we want our customers to smile," he said. "If you’re trying to learn new things, you’re focused, so you’re not going to smile. By making it rote the way they are, that smile will become come easier. But that repetition is what we’re looking for now to build it, and as the doors open, everybody should be smiling ear to ear."

He added that he's confident in the current state of the food's quality and the crew's attention to detail.

Fanning said that PDQ is looking for the perfect marriage between product and management.

"You can take the best product in the world with the worst management and you’ll fail," he said. "You take the worst product and the best management, you’ll succeed. Now if you have the best management and the best product, we’re going to see where PDQ goes."

Photos

All photos by Michael DeSantis/Patch.