The Chicken War may have claimed its first casualty.
An employee at a Gainesville Popeyes Louisiana Chicken was hospitalized Tuesday, causing a section of the restaurant to shut down, according to a Facebook Live post.
Although the video did not indicate how the employee, reportedly named Tara, was injured, a tweet pointed to the store’s deluge of chicken sandwich orders:
“The Popeyes here in Gainesville, Florida just shut down because the manager got overwhelmed with the sammich [sic] orders and collapsed in some grease,” wrote the user.
An employee from a Popeyes in Starke, Florida, had to come in and help. Customers, some of whom had been waiting in line for 30 minutes, received free food.
A spokesman for Popeyes did not immediately respond for comment.
The injury came one day after a snappy tweet from the Popeyes Twitter account aimed at Chick-fil-A ignited a full-on social media feud among various fast-food chains over which had the best chicken sandwich. Shake Shack, Bojangles’ and even Wendy’s joined in on the fun that had the Twitter world crying from laughter.
Popeyes’ original tweet sparked a countrywide interest in trying their new chicken sandwich. While Popeyes across the country have been flooded with customers, this was the first reported Chicken Wars-related injury.
This story was originally published August 21, 2019 1:45 PM.
