Officially they’re called “kabobs,” but that name seems to fall short somehow. After all, kabobs usually have veggies on them, but these skewers are all chicken.

    A whole coop’s worth at that. Each succuelent piece of specially-seasoned bird weighs an ounce or more and there’s five to a stick. Why, each piece is the size of a golf ball or bigger, so “nuggets” isn’t appropriate either.

    So Big Bear Today photographer John Daskam began calling Community Market’s chicken kabobs “meatsicles,” and in our circles the prhase stuck. Each skewer is literally a meal on a stick, a whole popsicle’s worth of tender skinless, boneless chicken seasoned just right. We grab `em on the way to the ski slopes or hiking trails for a quick-fix meal that’s easy on the budget, with kabobs costing just $2.39, which includes ranch dipping sauce.

    You don’t have to be loco to know that Big Bear’s best pollo comes not from a colonel but a market’s deli. Of course, Community Market’s is no ordinary deli, as locals who have been devouring meatsicles—er, kabobs—like crazy for over 15 years now can attest. Indeed Community Market fixes and sells an amazing 200-plus pounds of chicken kabobs every week, or nearly 30 lbs. a day! That’s a whole bunch of bird!

    Each chick-on-a-stick is made from scratch, starting with cubes of skinless, boneless chicken that are first rolled in Community Market’s own barbecue sauce. Then they’re breaded in special seasonings and flour, fried and assembled onto a skewer. About 75 kabobs are prepared daily, but always in small batches, so each time the deli case gets empty—which happens a lot—more can be cooked in just a few minutes. So if they’re out when you come in, it probably means somebody like us just grabbed a handful, so ask how long till the next batch is ready...or better yet, call ahead.

    “It sells on sight,” Community Market’s Mark Doucette, who owns the store with wife Kathie, says. “People will ask `what’s that’ and point into the case, and after that happens they come back for them. They’ve got the perfect balance of sweet, salt and pepper.”

    Kabobs started out as just something to do with leftover turkey from the holiday season. “People would order one of our fresh Thanksgiving turkeys and then we would end up with 20-30 cancellations and end up selling it in February frozen for half of what it cost us,” Doucette, who has been with the store since 1970, says. “(Son) Richard and I came up with the kabob recipe and it became an instant hit, and we cleared out the leftover turkey in a week.”

    Meatsicles at first featured gobbler meat that was purchased bone-in that was trimmed. “We did that for two or three years, but eventually figured out that boneless, skinless chicken breast was the way to go,” he says. “It still takes trimming but nthing like turkey breast.”

    As popular as kabobs have become, they’re playing second fiddle these days to Community Market’s rotisserie chicken, made possible by a rotating oven that works hours-on straight every day. Buy a whole bird or just half or even a quarter, in four tantalizing flavors: mild Western spice that Doucette says is more herbal than spicy, lemon ginger, spicy Baja with a definite kick to it, and spicy barbecue.

    “I buy one a week,” says regular customer Gloria Meade. “It will feed several people and lasts for days. I use it in tacos, put it in salad.”

    “We usually have rotisserie chicken available into the dinner hour,” Doucette says, “and sometimes they’re left over at closing time, but not often. That rotisserie is the best investment we’ve made.”

    It also stays busy cooking porkloin roast, roast beef and tri-tip, which is 100% lean beef. “We season it with spice I buy from an old man, and it’s served rare and sliced,” Doucette says. “At $5.98 per pound, cooked, it’s not much more than the raw price.”

    For side dishes there’s homemade mashed potatoes made from scratch—just $1.89/lb.—or fresh made potato or imitation crab salad, among other deli highlights. Chicken is just part of a story that includes barbecue meatballs made at the store, extra-lean sausage breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and more. “We could use a bigger display case,” Doucette says.

—byMarcus Dietz

    Community Market is at 100 E. Big Bear Blvd. in Big Bear City, four miles east of the supermarkets. Call (909) 585-2641.