Nashville Hot Chicken Is Taking Over: 7 Chains Now Selling It
Nashville hot chicken has traveled well beyond its hometown, and the menus show it. Dave’s Hot Chicken, Hattie B’s, Joella’s, Hangry Joe’s, Angry Chickz, Houston TX Hot Chicken, and the original Prince’s all offer this spicy specialty. Some focus on tenders and sliders, while others lean into sandwiches, loaded fries, or rice bowls. This isn’t a list of seven brand-new launches; these are established businesses serving hot chicken, each with a regional footprint and a different approach to the dish.
Before diving into the heat levels, the origin deserves its place at the table. Nashville hot chicken began in the Prince family and grew out of Nashville’s Black community, long before today’s chains started building menus around it. The famous revenge-breakfast story has accumulated variations over the years, so treat it as family lore rather than independently proven fact. As Eater’s history puts it, despite those variations, “Hot chicken started in the Prince family.” That distinction matters when discussing who popularized the dish versus who originated it.
Start With Nashville’s Original, and Another Hometown Name
Prince’s Hot Chicken
Prince’s is more than another stop on a spicy-chicken list: it is the business at the center of the dish’s history. Its official website credits Thornton Prince with perfecting the recipe and identifies his great-niece, André Prince Jeffries, with carrying on the tradition. The business describes itself as “the original” and lists Nashville-area locations including South Nashville, Assembly Food Hall, Nashville International Airport, and Tanger Outlets. That makes it a multi-location regional operator, not a nationwide chain and the historical starting point for this lineup.
Prince’s also reminds us that Nashville hot chicken didn’t start as a social-media endurance test. Eater documented how Jeffries expanded the business from one heat level to a range of options, including hotter versions she wouldn’t eat herself. The modern fascination with extreme spice is only one part of the story. At Prince’s, the more meaningful connection is to a family business and a Nashville food tradition that existed decades before the national hot-chicken boom.
Hattie B’s Hot Chicken
Hattie B’s offers a particularly memorable vocabulary for choosing your heat. Its menu ranges from Southern to Mild, Medium, Hot!, Damn Hot!!, and Shut the Cluck Up!!! The names may sound like a dare, but the range also offers an entry point for customers not looking for maximum spice. Hattie B’s is a separate business from Prince’s, not a continuation of the founding family’s restaurant, an important distinction when the two Nashville names appear together.
Sliders, Sandwiches, and More Ways to Order
Dave’s Hot Chicken
Dave’s Hot Chicken puts individual portions front and center, with a current website featuring sliders, Dave’s Bites, and a newer mac-and-cheese-loaded slider. It also promotes Mini Sliders alongside its other snackable offerings. The appeal is a menu that puts the hot-chicken idea in several formats,so everyone doesn’t have to order the same meal. Check the ordering menu for your location before choosing, especially when a featured product is labeled app-exclusive or presented as a special offering.
Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken & Wings
Hangry Joe’s identifies its “Nashville-style Hot Chicken Sando” as its “crowning glory,” making the sandwich a clear place to start. Its official menu also lists chicken fingers, wings, chicken and waffles, wraps, loaded fries, and loaded mac and cheese. That variety separates it from a narrowly focused sandwich counter and gives groups more than one format to consider. The chain’s own heat guidance notes that even its No Heat option “may still be a little spicy,” a useful detail before assuming that label means completely spice-free.
Joella’s Hot Chicken
Joella’s makes its heat scale a prominent part of the ordering experience, with seven choices currently listed on its website. Southern has no heat, while Spiked Honey is a sweet, mild option served on the side. Ella’s Fav offers a little heat, followed by Tweener, Hot, Ghost Pepper, and Fire-In Da-Hole. The company calls the last one “waiver-worthy,” but customers don’t have to go near that end of the scale to order.
Related: Angry Chickz Is Bringing Its Nashville Hot Chicken to Sacramento With Its 48th Restaurant.
Two More Chains Turning Up the Variety
Angry Chickz
Angry Chickz serves Nashville hot chicken through sliders, tenders, and substantial bowls. Its classics include two sliders with slaw, pickles, and fries, or two tenders over toast with pickles and fries. Another option places tenders over buttery rice with slaw, pickles, and the chain’s sauce. The bowl menu goes further: Angry Mac combines chopped tenders, fries, macaroni and cheese, and sauce, while Angry Fries pairs tenders and fries with slaw and pickles. This is hot chicken built for more than a sandwich bun.
Its six heat levels run from Country (labeled No Heat) through Mild, Medium, Hot, X-Hot, and Angry. The menu explicitly attaches “Sign a Waiver” to Angry, distinguishing it from the less intense choices. Those names are the chain’s descriptions, not a standardized measurement you can compare directly to another restaurant’s Medium or Hot. If your goal is to enjoy dinner rather than test your limits, the menu offers several options before reaching the waiver-marked level.
Houston TX Hot Chicken
Despite the city-specific name, Houston TX Hot Chicken lists restaurants beyond Texas and explicitly markets Nashville hot chicken sandwiches. Its Original Hot Chicken sandwich comes on a brioche bun with pickles, slaw, and house sauce, while the menu also includes tender meals. The company’s House Favorite adds a side of tender, seasoned fries, and house sauce, with the chicken prepared at your selected spice level. Official location pages list restaurants in Utah and Colorado, showing the name doesn’t limit the business to Houston.
The heat options include No Spice, Honey Rub, Hot Honey, Mild, Buffalo, Medium, Spicy, Lift-Off, and Houston, We Have a Problem! The last carries a listed $2 surcharge and requires a waiver. Across all seven businesses, the key takeaway is choice: Nashville hot chicken now appears in multiple formats and heat levels, but the labels and charges vary by restaurant. Check your local menu rather than assuming one chain’s “medium” matches another’s, or that every location offers the same items.
