Have you not heard of "woody breast?" I imagine you have if you have cooked that much chicken, and it is becoming a pervasive problem in the poultry industry. You can recognize it as raw breasts that have thin white lines running across them. The meat is tough and rubbery and NO way of cooking it helps. You basically need to grind it up in order for it to be a decent consistency.
I have gotten increasingly frustrated as a consumer with this kind of chicken. I am at the point where I examine every package of chicken I buy and have stopped buying larger amounts in bulk packaging where I can't see each individual breast. It is a problem with traditionally raised, organic, and free range chicken. It has nothing to do with what the chickens are fed, antibiotics, etc. It's a genetic issue that poultry industry heads are frantically trying to eliminate. It only affects the breast meat, not the thighs or legs. One solution is to switch to dark meat, but that's not what most Americans want.
The majority of woody breast ends up being used in low quality processed foods (like nuggets and patties), but restaurants can end up with it too because suppliers don't specifically screen for it and chicken is not graded like beef is, so there is no way to really avoid getting some. What a restaurant CAN do is NOT grill up and serve those pieces to patrons. But that would require throwing away a LOT of chicken. So, the end result at a place like Tony's is, they serve customers the woody chicken. And yes, sometimes it is so bad that you literally can't chew it. Has happened to me several times at home.
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