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'You Got To Have The Chicken': Coronavirus Pandemic Leads To Delaware County Restaurant Offering Deal On Hard-To-Find Poultry

GLENOLDEN, Pa. (CBS) -- The coronavirus pandemic has altered everyday life for so many, and things that used to be routine are no longer that way. In Delaware County on Wednesday, people lined up for something that would have once seemed unimaginable.

A couple of hundred people lined up for a deal on chicken Wednesday morning, stretching down Saxer Avenue in Springfield. The owners of Thunderbird II of Springfield offered the chicken at cost -- $1.75 per pound.

"I have the chicken. You got to have the chicken, which we can't find nowhere else but Thunderbird," a customer said.

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The owners say the idea came after finding area store shelves empty with no meat and no poultry to be found.

"I started crying on the way home. There was nothing. There was no … the shelves were completely bare," a customer said.

Seven hundred eighty pounds of chicken was sold in a flash.

"It's definitely historical to think about, standing in line to get chicken," another customer said.

"There's no shortage with the food distributors. It's funny, to see the shortages in toilet papers and everything, it's no problem at all getting it from US Foods in our case," a Thunderbird employee said.

A few miles away, the shelves were surprisingly fully at Guy's Foods, a small grocery store and deli in Glenolden. Owner Joe Zane coordinated with his distributor after days of a crazy rush for staples.

Zane says since last Thursday, the rush to buy food and supplies has been like an unending blizzard.

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"It's definitely snowstorm-like but there's no snowstorm so the next day they come back out again. That's what's going on," Zane said.

Shoppers stopped in to stock up, each with stories about the times everyone's living in.

"It's scary, but it's life. You have to do what you have to do. You can't run scared from an invisible whatever this is," a man said.

One distributor said it's crazy. He says there is no disruption in the food supply chain, and he urged people to remain calm.
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