Croydon has a lot of chicken shops. Or rather, it did have. In 2014, there were 82 places to get your fried chicken fix. In 2015, this went down to 68 shops, dwindling further to 61 in 2016. In the early months of 2017, it's dipped even further to 59.
This is all according to statistics acquired by the Croydon Advertiser through a Freedom of Information request.
Croydon is becoming increasingly upmarket with the recent opening of the food-focused Boxpark, and the decline in chicken shops could be tied to a change in identity for the area. We previously covered an attempt to quantify gentrifying areas through their number of chicken shops.
Lots of Croydon's chicken shops are struggling to compete with the number of takeaways in the area, and rent increases are also hitting the chicken shops hard.
Still, perhaps chicken shops in Croydon have a chance with the incredibly positive review Miami Fried Chicken got from the Chicken Connoisseur:
If you find it odd that Croydon is home to Miami Fried Chicken, take a look at this diagram with some of London's finest chicken shop names.
