Favourite local restaurant

Photo by Callie Lugosi

1. Magic Bird Fried Chicken
2. Roughage Eatery
3. Yafa Café

Since Oct. 31, 2018, Magic Bird Fried Chicken has been open at The Handsome Daughter, bringing a comfort-food experience to Sherbrook Street.

Magic Bird’s menu has something for everyone (but mostly chicken lovers), with a variety of classics like buckets of chicken and chicken tenders. The menu is also home to many new chicken-sandwich creations, fries and salads.

Behind every good menu is a creative process, and, at Magic Bird, chef and owner Michael O’Connell continues to create new and intriguing recipes for customers to try.

“I will just eat something and be like, ‘how can I incorporate this into a fried-chicken dish?’” O’Connell says. “Sometimes, we will just come up with a name as a joke, and I’ll try and work backwards from that ... it’s really just (about) trying to find new things.”

Winnipeg’s West Broadway has been O’Connell’s home community for about 15 years.

“It’s just great to be able to run a business here,” O’Connell says. “I can walk down the street and see people that I know every single day. I am friends with all of the other business owners. It’s just a really nice community.”

For O’Connell, like many business owners, the COVID-19 pandemic posed some challenges. “We were able to continue being in business because people wanted comfort food,” O’Connell says. “It is really nice, now that things are open again, to be able to see people (and) the community.”

“I am just really glad to see that people continue to support us ... and I am really happy that people enjoy our food,” he says. “That’s the biggest thing that makes me happy – making nice things for other people.”

Magic Bird Fried Chicken is open and ready for customers. Find them at 61 Sherbrook St. and try one of the weekly specials.

Published in Volume 76, Number 12 of The Uniter (December 2, 2021)

Related Reads