Popeyes' chicken sandwich is back on the menu, but it seems smaller and less exciting the second time around

• Popeyes brought back its long-awaited chicken sandwich on Sunday after running out of it two weeks after its initial release in August.
• When Popeyes' chicken sandwich first came out, we found that it was vastly better than any of the other fast-food chicken sandwiches out there, including Chick-fil-A's.
• However, some fans have noted that the new sandwich seems different this time around. When reached for comment by Business Insider, a Popeyes representative said nothing about the sandwich had changed. 
• I went to a local Popeyes to investigate and found that the new sandwich is smaller and not nearly as good as the original.
• Sign up for Business Insider's retail newsletter, The Drive-Thru, to get more stories like this in your inbox. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When it first came out, Popeyes' chicken sandwich was a true revelation.

I tried the sandwich at a test location in Manhattan before it was officially rolled out. I compared it against seven other fast-food chicken sandwiches and found it was better than all of its competitors, including Chick-fil-A, in every regard. I rarely go back to fast-food places to eat the food I've tasted for work, but I had plans to go back to Popeyes for the chicken sandwich.

Then, everything changed when the Chicken Sandwich Wars erupted across social media, and a mad scramble for Popeyes' sandwich caused it to sell out within two weeks of its release.

Anyone who's been following this sandwich saga knows that the chicken sandwich finally returned on Sunday after a hiatus of more than two months. But on Twitter, some fans noticed that the sandwich seemed ... different.

When reached for comment by Business Insider, a Popeyes representative said nothing about the sandwich had changed. 

So, I went to a New York Popeyes on Sunday to investigate:

The sandwich had been back for several days at my local Popeyes, so Sunday wasn't as crazy as I expected. However, there were still several people waiting outside for the restaurant to open at 10 a.m.

The first three rushed in, then the line quickly filled up. Everyone was there for the chicken sandwich. Some people had tried it before, and some were there to try it for the first time.

My first clue that something was different should have been the calorie count. According to the sign inside the restaurant, the sandwich was 660 calories. But in a Healthline article from the time of the sandwich's original release, Popeyes confirmed the sandwich was 690 calories.

A representative for Popeyes did not offer an explanation for the differing calorie counts when reached for comment by Business Insider. 

Source: Healthline

Ok, the bag felt lighter than I remembered. But it had been a long time since I'd first eaten the sandwich.

The first time I tried the sandwich, it was stacked. The chicken was thick, the bun was thick, and even the pickles looked like they'd been plucked from an advertisement.

At first glance, the new sandwich also looked different. The bun was lighter and smaller than I remembered, and it just looked smaller.

The old sandwich had dappled waves of batter on a piece of chicken thicker than my wrist is wide. The bun was perky and smooth, while thick slices of pickle peeked out from under the chicken.

But the new sandwich looked more like your typical fast-food chicken sandwich: beige, beige, and a hint of something else.

The first time I'd tried the sandwich, I was impressed by the perfect balance of its plentiful ingredients.

And don't get me wrong. The new sandwich was far from bad. The chicken was as flaky and juicy as ever.

The original bun was a darker shade of brown, and it also held its shape better.

The bun on the new sandwich was definitely lighter, flatter, and smaller, even though it still tasted excellent: sweet potato brioche with great structural integrity.

The original sandwich had three large slabs of pickle, bright green, thick, and crunchy.

The new sandwich had just two measly pickle slices, less green, thick, and crunchy than its predecessors.

On the old sandwich, the battered chicken outsized its bun, and there was plenty of mayo to glue it all together.

On the new sandwich, the chicken was noticeably smaller. The batter was just fine, although I would no longer describe it as "dappled." There also seemed to be less mayo.

We reached out to Popeyes for comment on what, if anything, had been changed about the sandwich. A Popeyes spokesperson told us that it was the same sandwich and nothing had changed.

But these were clearly two very different sandwiches.

It's possible that this was a store-to-store variation, and I just got unlucky this time. But judging by Twitter chatter about the sandwich, I wasn't the only one to notice that the new version seemed smaller.

The chicken sandwich I had on Sunday still wasn't bad by any means. It was still leagues above Chick-fil-A's pithy slider. But it was far from the transformative experience my first Popeyes chicken sandwich had been.

This sandwich was like the fourth season of "Community" or the ninth season of "Scrubs": an extraordinary thing made ordinary, a reminder of what could have been.