Free on Sun­day?

Popeyes is look­ing to hire “chick­en sand­wich pro­fes­sion­als” for one day a week only, a move that appears to tar­get its chick­en sand­wich rival.

It just hap­pens to be the one day its com­peti­tor Chick-fil‑A is noto­ri­ous­ly closed. In 1946, Chick-fil‑A founder Truett Cathy made the deci­sion to close the chain on Sun­days so that “he and his employ­ees could set aside one day to rest and wor­ship if they choose” — a prac­tice that is still main­tained today.

POPEYES CHICKEN SANDWICH LISTED AT ART BASEL FOR MORE THAN $120K

“Popeyes con­tin­ues to be hum­bled by the love its guests have shown for The Chick­en Sand­wich,” a Popeyes spokesper­son told FOX Busi­ness Mon­day. “We decid­ed to have fun with this by post­ing clas­si­fied ads alert­ing poten­tial hires to our open­ings. And yes, they must have Sun­days open.”

The New York Times

The ads debuted with­in a range of pub­li­ca­tions includ­ing The New York Times, New York Post, Boston Globe and Mia­mi Her­ald on Sun­day.

Although the ads were fea­tured in sev­er­al parts of the coun­try, the com­pa­ny is only seek­ing employ­ees for its Mem­phis- and New Orleans-area restau­rants.

MCDONALD’S CHICKEN SANDWICH ‘BIG US HIT’ RIVALING POPEYES, CHICK-FIL‑A, KFC

“Earn mon­ey on Sun­days. Pop­u­lar chick­en sand­wich restau­rant look­ing for team mem­bers. Require­ments: Avail­able on Sun­days. Must have expe­ri­ence prepar­ing chick­en sand­wich­es,” the ad in the New York Post read. The ad then asks any­one inter­est­ed to con­tact: Sundayopenings@popeyes.com.

Chick-fil‑A did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to FOX Busi­ness’ request for com­ment at the time of pub­li­ca­tion.

New York Post

The ad in the Mia­mi Her­ald reads, “Free on Sun­day? Have expe­ri­ence putting togeth­er a bun + chick­en + pick­les? Love serv­ing peo­ple chick­en sand­wich­es? Join our team one day a week?”

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Mia­mi Her­ald

The ads come as chains across the indus­try are gar­ner­ing social media buzz over the so-called chick­en wars.

With the chick­en mar­ket­place show­ing rapid growth, the indus­try’s heav­i­est hit­ters — Chick-fil‑A, Popeyes, which is a unit of Restau­rant Brands Inter­na­tion­al, Wendy’s and McDon­ald’s — are clam­or­ing for ways to effec­tive­ly com­pete against its rivals.

When Popeyes launched its chick­en sand­wich in August it became an instant hit, sell­ing out in around two weeks and spark­ing a viral Twit­ter feud with rival Chick-fil‑A.

The sand­wich gar­nered so much hype, Popeyes’ sales were 17 per­cent high­er than aver­age weeks after it sold out of the sand­wich­es, accord­ing to ana­lyt­ics firm Sec­ond Mea­sure. As a response, McDon­ald’s fran­chise own­ers report­ed­ly asked the chain in July to put out a chick­en sand­wich to rival com­peti­tors threat­en­ing sales growth.

McDon­ald’s and Popeyes entry into the mar­ket with their chick­en sand­wich ver­sions threat­ened the so-called suprema­cy of Chick-fil‑A ‘s ver­sion which debuted in 1964 and has since “been a hit with mil­lions of peo­ple nation­wide,” the com­pa­ny’s web­site reads.

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The Asso­ci­at­ed Press and FOX Busi­ness’ Jeanette Set­tem­bre con­tributed to this report.