For two hours Thursday, a McDonald’s in Washington will offer free Chicken McBites, a regional snack on the restaurant’s menu.

From 5 p.m. until 7 p.m., owners of eastern North Carolina McDonald’s are giving away the snack-size McBites to customers coming to the legendary fast-food chain. Customers do not have order another item off the menu to take advantage of the offer.

“The chicken market is huge in eastern North Carolina, and this is a product that is promotional in nature, just a temporary offer,” said Bill Purcell, owner of the Washington McDonald’s. “We made a decision to give a snack size away for free.”

According to Purcell, this is also McDonald’s continued approach for customers to eat healthier.

“We’re very aware of nutrition and meeting consumers’ needs,” Purcell said. “Consumers are demanding a different recipe from us than they were 20 years ago and we’re trying to be cognizant of that.”

The snack size varies in the number of McBites and weight, according to the McDonald’s website.

“This is our way of just saying thank you to our customers for their loyalty,” Purcell said. “This is also an opportunity to try the Chicken McBites.”

Chicken McBites have been on the McDonald’s menu since 2012. The fast food restaurant has also made Fish McBites and Spicy McBites over the last two years.

“We are back to our original McBites recipe, which seems to be our most popular flavor,” Purcell said. “This is a whole breast piece of chicken and it’s a little different than our Chicken McNuggets.”

Purcell said most of North Carolina has Chicken McBites because of the number of chicken consumers in the state.

“This is not a national thing, this is just our region, which is North Carolina, some of South Carolina and Tennessee,” Purcell said. “This is mostly a southern product for sure.”

McDonald’s is located at 1408 Carolina Avenue in Washington.