There's A Reason Bojangles' Biscuits Are Better Than Yours

Some biscuits just hit different. It's those soft buttery biscuits your grandma made when you were a kid. Or the fluffy biscuits at the hole-in-wall diner downtown you visit every other day. You might be surprised, though, that the fast food world can put out some pretty banging biscuits. Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, and even McDonald's are known for making pretty good biscuits. But, for us, those biscuits at Bojangles are on another level — and there's a clear reason for that.

Biscuit makers at Bojangles aren't a normal bunch of kitchen workers. The average biscuit maker at the chain puts out more than 1,000 biscuits in a typical eight-hour shift. That's 125 biscuits per hour, and around two per minute. Since Bojangles serves breakfast all day, biscuit making is a nonstop affair. But putting out 1,000 biscuits in eight hours is just the average biscuit maker. At Bojangles, there's another class of biscuit chefs, if you will, called master biscuit makers.

These are no ordinary folders of dough, either. These experts in the kitchen have mastered Bojangles' intricate biscuit making process. And that process is no joke.

To become a master biscuit maker at Bojangles, an employee will need to pass a test in which they are judged on speed, yield, and mastery of Bojangles' detailed 49-step biscuit-making process. If a normal biscuit maker at the restaurant chain can put out about 1,000 biscuits in an eight-hour shift, master biscuit makers can make up to 2,000. With more than 800 locations stretched out across 20 states (and even one in Honduras), Bojangles is one of the best regional fast food chains around — and it currently has around 4,500 master biscuit makers on staff.

The restaurant chain takes its master biscuit makers so seriously that it even has an annual competition to crown the Biscuit Maker Champion. Restaurant owners and leaders nominate the best of their master biscuit makers for the competition, and Bojangles invites the top 12 for the ultimate biscuit-making showdown at their headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Each competitor gets 10 minutes to demonstrate their biscuit-making expertise while being judged on speed, efficiency, and quality of the biscuits. Both franchise and company-owned restaurants are represented, and the top three biscuit makers in each category receive $1,000, while the other finalists receive $500 — that's in addition to a corporate-funded two-day trip to Charlotte.

Bojangles takes its biscuits incredibly seriously, and you can see that in the results. But ultimately, for one master biscuit maker in Kannapolis, North Carolina, it's all about making customers happy. In an interview with Axios Charlotte, master biscuit maker Felicia said, "I just really like to make biscuits. And I like to keep the customers happy and see the smile on their faces when they taste them."