Everyone has a job on chicken street: the guy standing over an open-flame grill cooking skewered chicken thighs and breasts and gizzards and feet, which they call legs on the menu and which cost 10,000 VND—that’s about 42 cents in USD—and which you definitely have to work for but which are delicious, has a job. The beautiful plus-sized Vietnamese party girl who walks around to the tables with handfuls of skewered BBQ’d chicken and who’s wearing a shirt that says “The Bold Font,” which makes much more sense in the context than the usual shirts with random English words and phrases on them that get worn pretty regularly here, has a job. The foxy beer girls who, frankly, I didn’t expect to find working the stretch of Hanoi known as Chicken Street but I’m glad they’re here, have a job, which surprisingly doesn’t involve pointing and yelling, but not surprisingly does involve making sure there are plenty of cold ones in the bucket next to the table for you to just grab when you’re ready. The young and skinny guy who takes your order but apparently forgets about the chicken feet but that’s okay because you can just ask the Bold Font for some as she walks by, he has a job. The men also have a job, which is to sit and smoke cigarettes and yell at the skinny kid to take the orders of the new customers when they sit down. The lady who Gina calls the Auntie who comes around to your table to remove the chicken from the skewers and cuts it into manageable pieces with scissors has a job. The foxy take the money when you’re done eating and drinking and cleaning your hands with a wet nap the size of which would make your basic wing house style wet nap feel like it needs a bigger truck lady has a job. The skinny and in no way foxy guy who adds up the total before you take the check to the foxy take the money lady has a job. 

Chicken Street is actually on P. Lý Văn Phức, which translates literally according to Google as “Physical Literature Complex Street.” So there’s that. It is known for one thing only: BBQ’d chicken, which they serve with a side of pickled cucumbers and water spinach, grilled sweet potato, and grilled and honeyed French bread. All of this stuff is delicious. There’s also a place that adds grilled pork ribs to the menu for “diversity,” but I’ll give the whole woke business a hard pass here. This is Chicken Street. Respect the cock.