Nashville-Style Hot Chicken Chain Opens First Location in Delaware

deleciousfood | July 31, 2024 | African Food | No Comments

The hottest chicken trend is coming to Delaware.

Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken & Wings, one of several fried chicken chains looking to capitalize on the new national popularity of fire-engine red fried chicken dipped in cayenne pepper, will open this year in Dover’s new Capital Station shopping center, brokers Capital R&R Commercial Realty said.

The Dover Hangry Joe’s will be the chain’s first outlet in Delaware and one of the few hot chicken outlets in the state so far — though that’s unlikely to last. According to its website, Hangry Joe’s is already looking for another location in the Wilmington area.

Hangry Joe's sells Nashville-style hot chicken.

Hot chicken restaurants, whether corporate chains like Dave’s Hot Chicken or local halal eateries, have taken over the region and country in recent years. Some neighborhoods in New Jersey and Philadelphia now have hot chicken restaurants side by side. In Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood, four hot chicken restaurants exist within three blocks of each other.

Other chains like Colbie’s Southern Kissed Chicken and Burger King have already gotten in on the game, offering their own, slightly milder, versions of Nashville-style hot chicken.

So what makes Nashville fried chicken famous? And where and when exactly will Hangry’s open? Here’s what we know.

What is Nashville Hot Chicken?

Nashville Spicy Chicken is actually Prince’s Spicy Chicken.

Nearly a century ago, Nashville’s Thornton Prince was a thin man with a fiery, handsome gaze, a heartbreaker who married five times and left behind a trail of romantic ruins. One of those heartbroken people, known to legend as “Girlfriend X,” decided to get even. So she made him fried chicken spiced with cayenne and black pepper, so hot it should liquefy your insides and burn your soul.

Well, Thornton loved it, the story goes. He asked for more. He loved it so much that he sold the terribly spicy chicken out of his house and then founded Prince’s Hot Chicken in 1945.

Today, 80 years later, his family still serves bright red fried chicken with cayenne sauce at the famous Prince’s Hot Chicken shack in Nashville — a flavor that became known as “Nashville” hot chicken after the flavor spread to other restaurants in the city and eventually the rest of the country.

What makes it different? Heat. Tremendous heat. Real heat. Earthy, numbing, coma-inducing heat. Crispy breading, brined chicken, and a bright red sauce made mostly of fat and cayenne pepper. Plus a pickle. What else do you need?

Regardless, over the past decade, “Nashville hot chicken” has gone from local delicacy to cult item to ubiquitous flavor — spawning several chains dedicated to hot chicken, including Nashville’s Hattie B’s, in addition to Dave’s Hot Chicken, Joella’s Hot Chicken, Howlin’ Ray’s and, of course, Hangry Joe’s.

How is it different from Hangry Joe’s and when will it open in Delaware?

Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken and Wings, founded in Northern Virginia by partners Derek Cha and Mike Kim, is dedicated to both Nashville-style spicy fried chicken sandwiches and Korean-style chicken wings — a duo of spicy chicken flavors. Born in Korea, Cha is also a co-founder of the Sweet Frog frozen yogurt franchise.

Hangry Joe’s, founded in 2021, already has about 30 locations in Virginia and Maryland alone, as well as several in the home of Tennessee hot chicken, four within the Philadelphia city limits and one location in… Dubai.

The Dover store, located in the Capital Station shopping center at Division Street and DuPont Highway, is expected to open in late fall or early winter of this year, according to R&R Commercial Realty, making it likely the first store in Delaware. Another Delaware store is already planned for Elsmere, according to the Hangry Joe’s website.

R&R’s Charles Rodriguez says the deal means Capital Station will be almost fully leased.

“Capital Station has become one of Dover’s premier business centers,” Rodriguez wrote in a statement. “It now houses a wide range of business types and attracts consistent traffic. It has come a long way from its former life as a shuttered Playtex factory.”

Where else in Delaware can you find Nashville hot chicken?

Philadelphia and the entire state of New Jersey are filling up with hot chicken restaurants – so much so that some hot chicken restaurants sometimes open across the street from other hot chicken restaurants.

But interestingly, it’s hard to find a real Nashville-style cayenne-spiced fried chicken sandwich in Delaware right now. Delaware restaurants dedicated entirely to spicy chicken are even harder to find.

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