The fried chicken sandwich craze has surged throughout Toronto in the past year, with more restaurants adding the popular item to their menus. Even new ventures, like the forthcoming ChickMagnet, are starting their businesses focused on their chicken sandwiches.
While the fried chicken sandwich market becomes more and more saturated by the week, the ChickMagnet team thinks there is still room for improvement.
“I don’t think my chicken sandwiches are crazy or revolutionary,” said Arya Hamedani, the chef behind ChickMagnet. “I just don’t think chicken sandwiches around the city are that good, and I think it could be a lot better.”
Hamedani, a former sous chef at some well-known Toronto institutions like Kost and Figo, says the concept for ChickMagnet came to life through a series of fortunate events that lined the opportunity up perfectly.
When the pandemic first hit, Hamedani was working as a sous chef at Via Allegro out in Etobicoke. The restaurant was pressured to close, leaving him to figure out what many cooks in Toronto have had to figure out for themselves––what do I do now?
He turned to providing a curbside catering service out of his house in Toronto, which gained a lot of traction through local media. When his business started taking off, he capitalized on it by moving into a space on Queen Street West to expand his catering company, AryaHungry.
From there, he saw the opportunity to pilot new ideas––and being surrounded by some like-minded cooks and chefs he shared the small kitchen space with, the concept for ChickMagnet came to fruition.
“We’re already here, we’re already paying rent. How do we adapt?” said Hamedani. "How can we start generating some revenue?”
The kitchen is located at the backside of the Beverley Hotel in the heart of Queen West, which has become a sort of collective for up-and-coming young chefs and cooks looking to conceptualize their culinary desires.
Also sharing the space are the folks at Ration Food Lab, run by some of the masterminds behind Reverie at the Park and the ones that are turning the Beverley Hotel into an "incubator for young chefs" to pilot new food innovations.
“This isn’t a ghost kitchen. Ghost kitchens are killing the industry,” said Jef Edwards, executive chef of Ration Food Lab.
ChickMagnet will be available through a multitude of food delivery platforms and operate as a takeout only spot for the foreseeable future. Hamedani says that a space of his own is definitely one of his goals down the line, though it doesn’t make sense for his business right now.
“For this concept, I don’t think having a physical location right now is the best idea,” said Hamedani, referring to the overwhelming overhead costs of starting up.
ChickMagnet is slated to open on February 2 with four flagship menu items, including their original chicken sandwich, a spicy chicken sandwich, a health-conscious grilled chicken sandwich and a monstrous double-stacked sandwich.
