Joe’s Poultry Farm

We’d have to say that one of the great culinary developments of the new century has to be the ubiquity of the roasted supermarket chicken. Supermarkets upscale and pedestrian alike have found it makes sense to offer hot roasted chickens at a price not all that much more than the uncooked version. It’s an incredible convenience for families without a dedicated homemaker. The one downside, as we see it, is that they often overdo the seasonings, and the result is a bird that tastes more of herbs or garlic or lemon than roasted chicken.

That’s one of the reasons we so appreciate Joe’s Poultry Farm in Vineland. Joe’s history goes back at least as far as the 1950’s, to a time when a roasted chicken in every grocery was just a gleam in Frank Perdue’s eye. Joe’s is not really a chicken farm, and we don’t know if they ever were (although we have heard that customers used to buy uncooked chickens here). But we do know that the gently seasoned bronze-skinned chickens they roast taste like chicken more than anything else.

The meat is moist beyond belief, and tender enough to practically fall from the bones. Buy a whole chicken and they’ll cut it up for you before they package it to go (there is no seating in Joe’s). That’s all they sell: roasted chickens (which they call barbecued chicken). There is a refrigerator case holding an assortment of homemade sides to bring home with your fowl. We can especially recommend the picnic-perfect potato salad.

Well-roasted chicken and good potato salad; sometimes that’s all we need to be content.