Philadelphia Man Eats a Whole Rotisserie Chicken Every Day for 40 Days Straight

He wanted to bring joy to the world.

November 08, 2022

Photo by: Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

What do you do on a daily basis to bring joy to the world? For 40 days straight, one Philadelphia man ate a rotisserie chicken.

Every day between September 28 and this past Sunday, Alexander Tominsky, a 31-year-old server at the Barclay Prime steakhouse in Rittenhouse Square, ate a whole chicken. Eleven days into his chicken-eating odyssey, he began documenting its consumption on Twitter, to the apparent delight of many.

“I would like to invite you all on a journey that I am on. I am eating a rotisserie chicken every day for 30 days. Today is day 11. I will keep you all updated as I get closer to my goal. Thank you,” Tominsky tweeted on October 8, atop a photo in which he looked healthy and optimistic about the ambitious task ahead.

The next day, he shared a photo of himself and his chicken in a verdant spot “enjoying day 12:” “A beautiful chicken on a beautiful day in a beautiful park.”

Photo by: Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

And so it went, for weeks, with Tominsky extending 30 days to 40 and looking increasingly worse for chicken-eating wear, yet also increasingly determined, until this past Sunday. At noon on November 6, in an otherwise joyless spot (a forlorn pier near and abandoned Walmart), Tominsky capped off his fowl journey in a public display of chicken eating, inviting a city still smarting from sports-championship losses (the Phillies, the Union) to experience the transcendent, if transient, pleasures of a mission accomplished.

Photo by: Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

“This is not a party,” Tominsky warned on his invitation. At the same time, he apparently anticipated a raucous Philly-style celebration, adding in a follow-up tweet: “I hope they greased the poles.”

By 4:33 p.m., the man who had reportedly by then become known as “The Philadelphia Chicken Man” had tweeted out an image of himself, surrounded by supporters (hundreds attended, according to local reports), triumphantly hoisting an empty rotisserie chicken container aloft.

Photo by: Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

Photo courtesy of Alexander Tominsky

Some fans were unsatisfied.

“Do 50,” one wrote.

“I agree 50 is a nice number. The quest for fifty begins,” another tweeted.

But Tominsky told Philadelphia Magazine he has no intention of eating another chicken for the foreseeable future.

“The entire experience of even looking at a chicken is unsettling,” he said.

So why did he do it?

“'I just felt like it seemed right,'” he told Action News.

In part, he was trying to relieve the pain in the world by enduring his own pain to bring joy to others, he told the New York Times.

“Sounds weird,” he told the paper. “But I just felt like I was doing this for a very important reason.”

Now that his mission has been accomplished, Tominsky sounds like a man at peace, telling the Times he’s “happy that it’s over” and is looking forward to enjoying a nice meal of sushi.

“My body is ready to repair,” he said.

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