Proposition Chicken is expanding with a second location on Oakland’s Lakeshore Avenue. The beloved fast casual San Francisco restaurant has been serving “the best damn chicken and pretty yummy people too” since opening its first location on Market Street in 2013. Using only the highest-quality Mary’s Free Range, Air Chilled Chickens, Proposition Chicken (Prop C) has developed a cult following for their quick yet culinary driven fried, flipped, and fake chicken options. On September 13, the second location will open at 3260 Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, California.
“We are thrilled to open this new location in Oakland,” says founder, Ari Feingold. “We’d been looking at spots for over two years, and with no exaggeration I can say that when we first stepped onto Lakeshore Avenue, we knew that it was perfect. The welcome we’ve felt during the build has only confirmed this. With this new location we can reach an entirely new community with whom we are excited to share our delicious fried and rotisserie chicken.”
Prop C offers a choose-your-own dining experience built around fried and rotisserie chicken. Customers first “choose their chicken,”—fried, flipped (slow-roasted rotisserie), or fake (crispy BBQ tofu) – then “choose their style”—sandwich, salad, or entrée. A sandwich comes with spicy slaw on a toasted hearth-baked roll, with a choice of house-made sauces; a salad includes massaged kale, romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, and Parmesan cheese; and an entrée comes with a refreshing tomato and cucumber salad, and a buttermilk biscuit topped with honey butter. There are also wings, chicken strips, and sides—including brown sugar Brussels sprouts, bone broth, and matzoh ball soup—with a killer beer selection. Prices range from $3 for the hand-cut fries to $13 for an entrée.
Prop C has developed a complex culinary process more commonly found at formal dining establishments. Starting with free range, air-chilled chickens from Mary’s—which never ever contain preservatives or antibiotics—each whole bird is broken down in Prop C’s kitchen and brined for 24 hours. After dredging, the chicken is twice fried—first at a low temperature then again at a high—creating its signature crispy, yet delicate and flaky crust. The rotisserie chicken is smothered in a marinade overnight before a slow roasting process. All sauces, spice blends, marinades, and dressings are made in-house, and the bones from the chickens are used to make bone broth and matzah ball soup. Additionally, Prop C offers gluten-free and vegetarian options including Celiac-friendly, gluten-free fried chicken.
The restaurants are jointly owned and operated by San Francisco restaurant veterans Ari Feingold, Elizabeth Wells, and Maxwell Cohen. Feingold, the food curator of the Outside Lands Music Festival from 2010 to 2016, jointly owns Straw—the carnival-themed Hayes Valley darling—with Cohen. Wells, an Alabama native and owner of The Mission District’s beloved Southpaw BBQ and Brewery, is the curator of Prop C’s extensive beer selection.
Since 2016, Prop C has also donated 10 percent of all dine-in sales every Monday to a local non-profit on a rotating monthly basis. The program has already raised over $17,000 for non-profits including Dress for Success, San Francisco; San Francisco LGBT Center; Homeless Youth Alliance; American Cancer Society; and the San Francisco Film Society. In addition to the monetary donation, the program brings attention to the incredible work of these local organizations. The program will double in size when the Lakeshore location opens. Hip Hop for Change will be the first to be supported by the Lakeshore location—which will exclusively support East Bay non-profits.
In addition to dine-in, Prop C is also available for take out and has an extensive catering department for events of all sizes. All packaging is 100 percent compostable or recyclable.
