Jeff Fuentes Gleghorn 

An unassuming Philadelphia steakhouse server achieved national fame recently for his perseverance in eating 40 rotisserie chickens in 40 days. Alexander Tominsky, also known as the “rotisserie chicken guy,” started his challenge on a whim, buying rotisserie chickens for lunch from a grocery store near his work. He posted photos of his lunchtime chicken to his small Twitter following every day until the 40th chicken approached, when he took the small step of putting up around 60 fliers in the area around him.

Someone found one of the fliers and shared it on Twitter, saying “The rest of the country will never understand the enduring spirit of Philadelphia.” It went viral, currently sitting at over 11,000 retweets and 120,000 likes. In the end, Tominsky ate chicken number 40 in front of a cheering crowd of hundreds of people at an abandoned pier near Walmart. Others found Tominsky’s Twitter account, and he is quickly approaching 45,000 followers as a result. He does not recommend the 40 day 40 chicken challenge to others though.

Louis Staples at Vice interviewed Tominsky, who said “Oh yeah, my body was affected. I had constant cramping and my stomach was bloated. Like, you can kind of feel the pulse? Like when you run and you feel the pulse of your heart, it’s like my stomach is constantly throbbing and then my oesophagus [sic] is kind of like raw from the salt. I also lost about 14 or 15 pounds, which was weight that I didn’t need to lose.”