Fried chicken laminated with cayenne paste and adorned with pickles, Nashville, Tennessee’s local cuisine, took off locally with Hot Chicken Takeover. Others have taken up the hot chicken flag as well, including big chains such as KFC and O’Charley’s that both introduced hot chicken meals this year.
“What makes hot chicken such a draw is it not only offers burn-your-face spices, but it has a story to go with it,” said Tim Powell, vice president of consulting at Q1 consulting, a food and beverage business analyst. Hot chicken started at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville about 70 years ago. The story goes that Thornton Prince stepped out on his wife too many times, and to punish him, she doctored some fried chicken with hot peppers. Instead of learning his lesson, Prince started selling the spicy chicken.
As American palates have adapted to spicier flavors and used chicken, mainly wings, as a vehicle for a wide range of sauces, hot chicken was bound for a breakout. “One area that we have identified (for growth) is fast-casual chicken,” said Darren Tristano, vice president at Technomic, a food and beverage consultancy. “It ties back to a big movement in spicy chicken. Wings have done an incredible job of growing, and this is kind of the next step in the process.”
