Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken in Florence, KY

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Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers is no doubt a local favorite. Every day, regardless of what time it is, the Florence, Kentucky location is swamped and the drive-thru frequently overflows onto the road. My boyfriend and I are avid Cane's fans, but sometimes we aren't willing to wait that long for our tenders and texas toast.

In our adventures to find a suitable Cane's replacement, we stumbled upon Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken and it is most certainly a worthy replacement. However, the style of chicken does taste quite a bit different if you're a fried chicken aficionado. Here's why you should give Lee's a try.

Lee's also has a cult following, but they have much quicker service

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We still had to wait in a very large line at Lee's to place our order, but the service was much quicker. You will end up sitting in a Cane's line for a solid twenty minutes, but at Lee's, you'll be out in ten, even if the lines are around the same length. They also have separate pay and pickup windows, which helps speed things up.

Lee's seems to be a bit more expensive than Cane's, but they have many affordable options on the menu. They also have more choices, as they offer both regular and spicy versions of their tenders, along with more sauce options to choose from.

Our order and what we enjoyed the most

We decided to split one of Lee's boneless family meals. We ended up with 10 (spicy) chicken tenders, 5 biscuits, fries, and mashed potatoes. It comes with free sauces, and we chose Bonsai, Country BBQ, and Honey Mustard, but they forgot the Honey Mustard. Our favorite is the Bonsai and they gave us four of those, so we aren't complaining. We also got two lemonades without ice and noticed that their lemonade comes out of a jug, not a machine, so it wasn't cold. After accounting for tax, we paid $25.94 which is an insane amount of money for takeout ... until you think about it.

An order of this size was my partner's idea and we had no chance of finishing it. The spicy chicken was fantastic, lightly spiced, crunchier than Cane's, and had great quality meat. Together we ate five of them. We each had one biscuit, which was light and airy and we enjoyed them immensely. The fries were okay, but the mashed potatoes mixed with gravy really stole the show. They are honestly on par with mashed potatoes someone might cook at home for a casual dinner, but not for thanksgiving. The lemonade was okay, but Cane's is definitely better.

We have a ton of leftovers remaining. Since eating at Lee's, we've brought some of the chicken with us on a car trip as a snack, toasted up some fries in the oven, and demolished the remaining mashed potatoes with our dinner tonight. There's still a couple of tenders left, some fries, and a couple of biscuits, not to mention lots of sauce. I would estimate that platter could feed 3-4 people. It was more than I would've liked to pay, but we wanted leftovers. They also have smaller menu options of 2-3 tenders that are far more affordable. An order of three tenders with two sides and a regular-sized drink comes out to $7.54, pre-tax.

Final thoughts

We prefer Cane's. However, we like to have Lee's every once in a while to change it up and get some spicy chicken. We also love their Bonsai sauce, which is hard to describe taste-wise, but it's kind of sweet and tangy. If you're in a hurry and want some quality, fast-food fried chicken, Lee's is a great option.

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