Chicken is hot. Literally.

Over the past year, Hot Chicken—or Nashville Hot Chicken—has been one of the hottest taste trends in the restaurant industry. And not just in Nashville, Tennessee, where it got its start.

While fast-food giants continue to battle over chicken sandwich domination, newer multi-unit hot chicken chains have begun emerging across the United States.

Just how much so? Let’s take a look a few quick fast-facts regarding multi-unit concepts selling hot chicken:

• Units: As of April 2023, there are 281 units associated with 22 multi-unit hot chicken concepts.
• Service Type: The hot chicken trend seems fairly exclusive to the LSR space.
• Ownership: Several brands are franchising to rapidly accelerate their speed-to-market.
• Territory: Most locations are in the southeast and southwest.
• Lifecycle: The number of hot chicken concepts has doubled in the past 12 months.
• Technology: Over 50% of multi-unit hot chicken concepts have Toast POS and DoorDash detectable on their website. 

So what are the fastest-growing hot chicken concepts right now?

Here are 2 to keep an eye on:

[01] Dave’s Hot Chicken is growing fast. Very fast. In fact, it’s responsible for much of the growth and momentum in the cuisine. The restaurant started in 2017 as a popup in a Los Angeles parking lot. Just one year later, they opened up their first brick-and-mortar location. They now have 135 locations across the US.

[02] Hangry Joe’s Hot Chicken went from 17 locations in November 2022 to 33 locations advertised in April 2023. They’ve doubled their footprint in the past 6 months alone.

Will other Hot Chicken concepts follow in their footsteps? We’ll be keeping tabs on their growth in Restaurantology.