My son cried foul when I took him shopping at MarketStreet Lynnfield. So I bought him fried chicken.
Recently, I dragged my sixthgrader to MarketStreet Lynnfield. Just what every 12-yearold boy yearns for: a shopping trip with his mother. By the time I entered Sephora on the hunt for clarifying shampoo, he looked ready to curl up inside his Nike hoodie.
As a reward, we went to Chicken & The Pig, the complex’s new quick-service restaurant that specializes in fried chicken and hot dogs, as the name suggests. Their chicken sandwiches met with huge approval from my aggrieved tween, as well as his kindergarten-aged brother and their Popeye’s-lovin’ dad. (No food snobs in our household.) Chicken & The Pig serves chicken cutlet-style sandwiches: panko-breaded, flat, missile-shaped, and fit for a parm. They are the brainchild of owner Guy Ciolfi, a Lynnfield native and longtime caterer. Like so many people, Ciolfi took a pandemic pivot: For years, he ran Burlington-based catering service Servizio. He specialized in corporate groups and hung on through the pandemic, closing in March 2022. But, as COVID raged, he plotted his next move.
“I’d always wanted to run a food truck,” he says. “I’ve always loved the movie ‘Chef ’ [with a similar theme]. My daughter works in a restaurant and has worked for me. My son is younger and grew up watching it. I asked my chef: ‘What do you think of a food truck?’ And he said, ‘Awesome!’”
So Ciolfi launched a truck during COVID, parking in Middleton and serving up chicken sandwiches. He drew a following, and he opened his first brick-and-mortar in Lynnfield in October. Though he also sells hot dogs — slathered with cheese or sauerkraut — we stuck to chicken on our visit, and we didn’t regret it.
“I don’t know anyone else who does fried chicken as a cutlet. I don’t like to bite into a piece of chicken where it’s big, thick, and fat,” Ciolfi says.
Instead, his chicken breasts are thinly pounded, breaded, and fried on command, rendering them crispy as corn flakes.
“Most chicken sandwiches are dipped in batter, frozen, and fried, with this puffy batter that you can barely get in your mouth. Ours is the opposite. When you bite into it, it’s like an explosion. When your order comes in, we drop it in the fryer, and the juice runs down your hand,” he says.
Brioche buns are buttered and flat-top-griddled, adding a touch of sweetness to the proceedings.
Many sandwiches come draped in thick, sturdy bacon from Kayem based in Chelsea, run by his longtime friends, the Monkiewicz family. (Bacon also comes a la carte, fat and flappy and with a brown sugar glaze, which was a hit with my kindergartner — who also devoured a solo bowl of garlicky, snappy house-made pickles.) I recommend the Vermont version, smeared with a maple mayonnaise, bacon, lettuce, and tomato. It’s their most popular sandwich, he says, thanks to that salty-sweet tango.
My older son recovered from his Sephora expedition with a sandwich drenched barbecue sauce.
“Tender,” he remarked, while also sucking down a chocolate frappe. (Thin and creamy, not rich and frothy; I’d actually call this a shake, not a frappe.)
Be sure to order waffle fries, too — an homage to one of Ciolfi’s favorite spots, Chickfil-A. They come with honey ketchup, adding that familiar kick of sweetness once again.
Tables were full during our visit, but it’s easy to pop in and order to-go at the counter. If you do choose to stay, they also sell beer and wine, which might come in handy if you’re shopping with a sulky child.
Chicken & The Pig specializes in thinly pounded, panko-breaded sandwiches sure to delight a sullen tween.
525 Market St., Lynnfield, 413-300-4182, www.chickenandthepig.com