Hot chicken 101: where to start

Nashville hot chicken is fried chicken coated in a cayenne-heavy paste, served on white bread with pickle chips. It looks simple, and it can be brutal. Here’s where it came from and where to try it.

The legend

The story everyone tells goes like this: Thornton Prince was a ladies’ man, and after one late night too many, a girlfriend took revenge by loading his fried chicken with pepper. He loved it instead. He and his brothers worked out a recipe and opened a chicken shack, sometime between the mid-1930s and the 1940s, depending on who you ask. Whether the revenge part is true is anyone’s guess, but the business is real.

The family kept it going for generations. Thornton’s great-niece, André Prince Jeffries, took over in 1980, and in 2013 the James Beard Foundation honored Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack as one of “America’s Classics.”

Where to go

• Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. The original family business. Its long-time East Nashville shop closed in 2019, but you’ll find Prince’s on Nolensville Pike in South Nashville, at Assembly Food Hall downtown and at the airport.
• Bolton’s. A walk-up counter on Main Street in East Nashville, open since the 1990s, with chicken fried in cast iron and hot fish that’s just as good.
• Hattie B’s. The one with the lines, and the easiest place to start. Several Nashville locations, including Midtown, Lower Broadway and a big new East Nashville shop that opened in 2026.
• Pepperfire. A local favorite in The Nations, smaller and calmer than the big names, and well worth the drive.
• Party Fowl. A sit-down option with a bar and a big menu, with locations in East Nashville, near Vanderbilt and in Donelson. (The Gulch location closed in 2025.)

Hot chicken, the festival

Every Fourth of July, the free Music City Hot Chicken Festival takes over East Park in East Nashville, with a fire-truck parade, an amateur cooking contest and plenty of chicken. Mark it for next summer.