Spicy Chick-n-Strips Are Back — But Only in Atlanta
Chick-fil-A brought Spicy Chick-n-Strips back on July 20, 2026 — to exactly two restaurants.
The test runs through September 12 at Chick-fil-A Sandy Springs and Chick-fil-A Sprayberry, both in metro Atlanta, while supplies last. The strips are made from the most tender part of the chicken breast, seasoned with a blend of peppers, freshly breaded, and cooked in 100% refined peanut oil. They come as a 3-count, 4-count or 10-count entrée, or as part of a meal, with your choice of dipping sauce.
Two restaurants, eight weeks. That’s the whole thing.
How to order
Dine-in, the Chick-fil-A App, and delivery all work at both locations, though delivery availability varies. Delivery menu prices run higher than in-restaurant, and fees apply at checkout.
One detail worth knowing before the drive: you earn Chick-fil-A One points on the purchase, but you cannot redeem points for Spicy Chick-n-Strips. Redemption is switched off for the duration of the test. Chick-fil-A applies the same rule to its other live tests. If you were planning to spend points, spend them on something else.
Why they disappeared the first time
These aren’t new. Chick-fil-A ran Spicy Chick-n-Strips in select Texas and Philadelphia restaurants, expanded to Charlotte and parts of Arizona on January 13, 2020, then to Chicago, Tampa and Central Texas on April 26, 2021. A short 2023 run ended with the item gone.
The reason sits inside those announcements, and it has almost nothing to do with demand.
To make room for the spicy strips, Chick-fil-A removed items. Charlotte and Arizona lost breakfast sausage, the sunflower multigrain bagel, Original Chick-n-Strips, the Grilled Cool Wrap and the Side Salad. The 2021 markets dropped Original Chick-n-Strips, the Grilled Cool Wrap and the Side Salad too.
That’s the constraint. A spicy strip needs separate breading, separate holding, and separation from the original strips. In a kitchen already running at Chick-fil-A’s volume, something has to go — and customers notice. When the chain tried removing the Side Salad nationally in 2023, backlash reversed the decision inside two weeks.
What a national release would take
Watch what happens after September 12, not the test itself.
The pattern is a small market run, a quiet gap, then a wider release if the numbers hold. The Jalapeño Ranch Club went from a single Salt Lake City test in mid-2025 to a nationwide launch on March 9, 2026 — roughly nine months. Frosted Sodas took a similar route from the Icedream Spin test to the permanent menu.
Two restaurants is smaller than either. That reads like an operations check rather than a demand check. Chick-fil-A already knows people want spicy strips. What it doesn’t know is whether a 2026 kitchen can run them without pulling something else off the board.
The timing isn’t random. Chicken tenders have become the competitive battleground, with McDonald’s, Popeyes, KFC and Bojangles all reworking their tenders recently. Chick-fil-A sells a spicy sandwich and has tested spicy nuggets, but has never carried spicy strips on the permanent U.S. menu.
If you’re not in Atlanta
There’s no waitlist and no app unlock. The item exists at those two addresses and nowhere else until September 12.
The more useful signal is Chick-fil-A’s other active test: a Protein Scramble Bowl and double protein on salads, running since June 8 in Louisville, Lexington, Columbia (SC) and Chattanooga. The chain is testing hard this year. If spicy strips clear the operations hurdle, a wider window in 2027 is the realistic read — not this fall.