Stirling Chickens

This is a staple of the CBF crowd in the Hills on the weekend or week night when you’ve had lots to do that day (as was perfectly put by Aaron T).
I have a couple of regular choices here — the lamb yiros with bacon and cheese — (I know, not your typical yiros, some Greek people may not like hearing it, but it’s delicious) and the half chicken pack. Winning lazy meals.
As has also been said in other reviews, they haven’t had a facelift for a while, and may face an uphill battle to compete if something like Fancy Burger, the Burger Foundry, Burger factory, Nordburger, or any other burger joint came up the hill (are they all legitimate burger joint names? I feel like I just started making up names by the end)
But for your old fashioned chicken and chips, or basic takeaway fare with a decent side salad and always a generous helping of delicious hot chippies, you can’t go wrong with dropping by the ol’ Stirling chickens.

Stirling chickens is one of those places that you go to when you’ve had a tough day. If you’ve been moving house, helping someone fix their roof, or have a bad hangover this is the place to go.
They do pretty standard chicken shop food, and have the burger market cornered in Stirling. The burgers are ok, but you won’t find anything fancy on these burgers. It’s pretty much one burger with lettuce and tomato with optional egg, bacon, cheese, onion or all of the above in «the lot».
They also serve nice free range bbq chickens, yiros, salads and various fried things. The salads are very run of the mill chicken shop style.
As far as the owners and staff go, you can tell these guys are tired of running a chicken shop. Nothing new happens here and I don’t expect it to. However, they are generous, and often add an extra piece of fish or an extra potato cake to your order. Sometimes this is good, but often in our house it gets fed to the dogs.
I think what this place needs is a bit of a shake up and revamp of the menu. If a good burger place comes into the hills it will take them out. They are nice people though and make ok food so I’ll be back next time I need food and can’t be bothered putting a clean shirt on and going to the pub.

This is it. Well, for me anyway.
I really like takeaway food, and this one little store in the main street of Stirling is the reason. Where some people have been put off of the traditional food choice of the Australian suburbs, my taste for all that is greasy and salty has been carefully nurtured by the best, the brothers at Stirling Chickens.
The brothers’ fame is their one downfall. Everything you could possibly want from a takeaway is there, from the quality of the fish, chips and chicken, to the variety of other deep-​fried goodies and salads. But therein lies the problem, everyone knows how good it is, and they all got there before you.
The way around this is to ring ahead, make a phone order. If it’s a busy night (usually Friday and Saturday nights) it can be hard to get through, but it’s worth it. On a warm summer’s evening it can be pretty stifling waiting in there, especially when all the clever types are walking in and straight back out with their pre-​ordered meal.
When it comes to takeaway food, if the biggest problem is too many people like it, then yes, this really is as good as it gets.

I grew up on Stirling Chicken, so I apologise in advance for anything sickeningly nostalgic in this review.
Good chooks, good chips, heaps of other fried goodies to get you salivating and clog your guts. Salads and everything too. It’s a chicken shop, what can I say.
The thing I love about this place is the feeling. It’s the vibe. Stirling Chickens is run by a family of brothers. Caricatures of the brothers sit between options on the expansive menu and terrible chicken puns line the bottom. The store is themed in the festive seasons and the awful colour scheme inside is more endearing than tacky.
This is a place where working locals come to feed the family when they don’t have time to cook dinner, where kids spend their pocket money on grease. It’s comfy comfort food.

There are some days where you just need to eat half a chicken with gravy, a medium chips on the side with more gravy and some sort of pasta salad to finish. Or at least you think you need to eat that much, I get like this after a big night of drinking.
Stirling Chickens can provide me with all the deep fried chips I need, sprinkled with chicken salt and maybe some vinegar if I’m in the mood (you’d be surprised how often I’ve asked for vinegar at chip shops and been turned down). The salad selection is pretty good, although they do have the dreaded tabbouleh — not a fan. and the seafood selection is pretty comprehensive too, its nice to see a salad with real seafood instead of extender.
Some times the line up is pretty long (for a small town in the hills) so waiting a bit longer isn’t uncommon, but I say stick it out, pull up a chair and a magazine because as hungover and hungry as you are, sometimes waiting makes the reward that much more satisfying.