Wright's Farm: All-You-Can-Eat Family-Style Chicken Dinners in Harrisville, R.I.

Wright's Farm Restaurant in Harrisville, R.I., seats 1,200 people, employs more than 180 locals and serves approximately 14,000 lbs. of chicken to about 12,000 visitors each week. It's amazing they can fit all that into Rhode Island, the smallest state in the country.

The 45,000 sq. ft. restaurant with six dining rooms specializes in family-style chicken dinners that include all-you-can eat chicken, rolls, salad with tasty Wright's Farm salad dressing, crispy fries and pasta shells with homemade marinara sauce. Everything is delicious and plentiful, but the real star of the show is the moist, fall-off-the-bone chicken -- slow-cooked, baked in whole, and then cut up when served. The deal is amazing: $12.75 for adults, $7.25 for kids 10 and under, at this writing.  You can also order steak, although that is not an all-you-can-eat item and not quite up to par with the chicken, although very good. Dessert includes traditional vanilla and chocolate ice cream roll and ice cream pie, the latter made by the Ice Cream Machine in Cumberland, R.I. (one of the best ice cream stands in New England!)

In business since 1972, Wright's is open Thursday and Friday from 4-9 p.m., Saturday noon- 9 p.m. and Sunday noon-8 p.m.  The wait can be very long but to make time go by faster, there's a 4,000 sq. ft gift shop on the premises that features clothing, gifts, books, toys, penny candy, homemade fudge, specialty foods and home and garden accessories. It's really a terrific gift shop with a diversity of interesting and often tasty merchandise, thus trumping tackiness that can be experienced at so many tourist gift shops.

Wright's Farm can get very loud and the huge parking lot can look like the mall at Christmas time, but that's part of the overall experience. Yes it's one of the largest restaurants in New England and should end up on the radio and TV traffic reports, but that doesn't take away from the amazing family-style dinners that are certainly anything but "fowl!"

Wright's Farm is located at 84 Inman Rd., Harrisville RI. Tel. (401) 769-2856

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