There’s no hotter food trend in Dallas right now than Nashville hot chicken.
Palmer’s Hot Chicken opened Oct. 17, 2020 in Lakewood, and Lucky’s Hot Chicken opened a month prior, on Sept. 21, 2020.
Despite the hot-chicken boom, Nashville hot chicken restaurants seem to have some room to grow in Dallas. For comparison, the spicy dish is “taking over Los Angeles,” the Los Angeles Times reported last year.
Dallas restaurants like Rapscallion, Whistle Britches and Street’s Fine Chicken serve Nashville hot chicken, but they’re not dedicated Nashville hot chicken shops. A restaurant on Lower Greenville called Eastside Social also sold hot chicken, but it closed in March. And though we have many fried chicken and Southern restaurants, again, the cayenne-laced variety from Tennessee is not always the hero.
Fort Worth and the D-FW suburbs have fared better, with Ricky’s Hot Chicken in Richardson, the Cookshack in Fort Worth, Rule the Roost west of Fort Worth and Helen’s Hot Chicken in Lewisville.
So what’s lit the fire under hot chicken in East Dallas? The owner and founder of Palmer’s Hot Chicken in Lakewood believes Nashville hot chicken has “exploded” in popularity, and he wanted in. Even KFC sells Nashville hot chicken.
Of course, hot chicken is nothing new: Prince’s Hot Chicken is the classic started nearly 100 years ago by a family from Nashville’s Black community. Trendier restaurants like Hattie B’s have popped up more recently in Nashville. A 2019 article in The New Yorker magazine points out that Hattie B’s was started by white restaurateurs who have been given undue credit for a dish with deep roots in Nashville’s Black neighborhoods.
Hattie B’s recently announced it will open in Deep Ellum.
Kim Prince, a member of the famous Prince’s restaurant family, has opened her own Nashville hot chicken restaurant in Los Angeles and notes the popularity of her family’s dish. “Even though my family’s business started during a time when it was Jim Crow and very segregated ... literally, everybody ate Nashville hot chicken in the late ’30s, ’40s and ’50s. It didn’t matter what color you were,” she told the Los Angeles Times.
In celebration of Prince’s contribution to hot chicken, the Nashville company received a James Beard Award in 2013.
One simple draw to hot chicken is that it’s been described as “addictive,” says Palmer Fortune, founder and owner of the new Palmer’s
“Yes, Nashville heat is hot — [it’s] supposed to be — but after about 30 seconds, something inside you has to have another bite. Who wouldn’t want to open a restaurant that served food that made people have that sensation, bite after bite?”
Here’s a look at the three Nashville hot chicken newcomers in East Dallas:
Palmer’s Hot Chicken
Fortune, the owner and founder of Palmer’s Hot Chicken, gives “all the credit” to the aforementioned Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville for introducing this spicy dish to Tennesseans so long ago.
Fortune, his family and chef-partner Mills Garwood recently moved from Georgia to Texas to open Palmer’s Hot Chicken in Lakewood. The restaurant was formerly Lakewood’s First & 10, which we had previously called one of Dallas’ best sports bars.
Palmer’s has four spice levels: naked, novice, Nashville and napalm. Fortune tells Eater his chicken will not be overly saucy; it’ll be drier with “a really strong bark on it.”
In addition to chicken, Palmer’s will serve catfish, shrimp, wraps and salads. The full bar will serve cocktails, beer and frosé — which sounds like a solid pairing with hot chicken, doesn’t it?
Fortune operates a Southern restaurant called Porch on St. Simons Island in Georgia. Initially, he wanted to open a second restaurant focusing on burgers, tacos or steak, he tells The Dallas Morning News in an email interview. “I threw it out to the universe and it didn’t really spit anything back,” he says.
Then his uncle, who has lived in Nashville for 40 years, gave him the idea to open a Nashville hot chicken shop. “At that moment, it clicked,” he says.
Palmer’s Hot Chicken is at 6465 E. Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. It opened Oct. 17, 2020.
Lucky’s Hot Chicken
Lou Olerio, the operator of Lucky’s Hot Chicken on Gaston Avenue in Old East Dallas, says there “was a gap in the market” when it comes to Nashville hot chicken.
So Olerio and his partners Hunter Pond and Kyle Brooks are opening a Nashville hot chicken shop inside a renovated building where restaurateur Norman Brinker opened his first place, Brinks Coffee Shop, in the ‘60s. There’s a personal connection, as Brooks’ dad, Doug Brooks, was the CEO of Brinker’s restaurant group, Brinker International.
The original midcentury modern sign is still there, but the Lucky’s Hot Chicken name is on display as drivers pass by. The interior of the restaurant has red and white retro tiles as a throwback to its history. The restaurant’s mascot is Lucky, “a Guy Fieri-looking chicken,” Olerio says.
The order-at-the-counter menu focuses on fried chicken, wings and sandwiches, each served with the option of five spice levels. Sides include mac and cheese, collard greens and fries. “It’s a really simple menu and a simple concept,” Olerio says.
The team hired chef Josh Bonee, a Nashville native who has worked at Husk in Nashville and at Stephan Pyles Flora Street Cafe and Fine China in Dallas.
“He grew up in those places,” Olerio says of Bonee’s relationship to Nashville hot chicken, “and ours will be as good or better as anywhere in Nashville.”
Lucky’s Hot Chicken is at 4505 Gaston Ave., Dallas. It opened Sept. 21, 2020.
Chirps Chicken Shack
Chirps Chicken is the start of a bigger project, says co-owner Jason Caswell. He and co-owner and founder John Sanchez hope to open as many as 12 Nashville hot chicken restaurants in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, in cities including Euless, Anna, Frisco and Flower Mound — though leases have not been finalized yet. Those restaurants will be called JJ’s Chicken Shack but will serve the same menu as the original Chirps, at 3619 Greenville Ave. in Dallas.
Chirps’ menu is simple: chicken tenders, sandwiches and sides, with a choice of several heat levels. The Nashville spice level “has just enough spice where it isn’t overwhelming,” Sanchez says. Serious hotheads can opt for the next level, fire.
Sanchez wanted to get in on the Nashville hot chicken trend after finding inspiration from Raising Cane’s.
“I started noticing a trend with Cane’s, with how busy these guys are. How busy Popeyes and other fast-food chains are. I thought, ‘Why couldn’t you replicate this, but for a sit-down structure?‘” he says.
Chirps Chicken Shack is at 3619 Greenville Ave., Dallas. It’s temporarily closed, as of Oct. 13, 2020.
Updated Sept. 16, 2020 with Lucky’s opening date. Updated Oct. 13, 2020 with Palmer’s opening date.
