They say “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
That is the statement that reigns true for Prince’s Hot Chicken in Nashville, Tennessee, the original home of hot chicken.
Hot chicken has become a phenomenon in the United States, and is popular for its taste and mysterious beginnings.
“It’s a really funny story actually…the founder was known for stepping out on his girlfriends. She would cook his fried chicken with an insane amount of spices to try and punish him, except he loved it,” said Leeanne Griffin, a longtime Connecticut food writer and former senior food reporter for CT Insider. “It’s kind of an urban legend.”
Chicken has long been a popular fast food ingredient, with companies like KFC, founded in 1952, Popeyes, founded in 1972 and Chick-Fil-A, founded in 1946, serving chicken as their primary ingredient for decades. Though these three have sort of become “legacy” companies for fast-food chicken, the food has seen a boom since the Covid-19 pandemic, with restaurants like Raising Cane’s, founded in 1996, and Dave’s Hot Chicken, founded in 2017, hopping on the trend.
Dave’s especially has mastered the spicy chicken realm, however, they are not the only company finding success in heat, as two Connecticut-based companies have perfected Nashville’s recipe and are growing quite fast.
Haven Hot Chicken
Haven Hot Chicken was co-founded in 2019 by Craig Sklar, Rob LaTronica, Jason Sobocinski and Etkin Tekin, after the four men visited Tennessee and fell in love with the hot chicken.
“It was an experience we’d never had before,” Sobocinski said. “It’s so freakin’ spicy and delicious, just by the way it’s made.”
“We went to all sorts of different places, and when we came back to Connecticut, we would seek out Nashville hot chicken on menus,” Tekin said. “We’d try it and were like ‘this is nothing like what we had down there, and we can do something about this.’”
The four men then experimented with a variety of recipes, menu items and even restaurant styles, looking for the perfect result. After starting some pop-ups in New Haven, Connecticut in 2020, the group started to find their footing, until the Covid-19 pandemic hit.
“People would DM us in the early parts of the pandemic and ask ‘oh, when are you going to do another pop up,’” Tekin said. “So finally, we arranged a pandemic pickup pop-up, and glove on-hand, bag out the window, we arranged over 200 orders over the course of eight hours. We knew there was still demand for our products, so we decided to tighten up the menu, skip the table side and move to quick service.”
In October of 2020, the inaugural Haven Hot Chicken opened in New Haven, and the four partners have not looked back since.
At the time of writing this, Haven Hot Chicken now has nine locations across Connecticut and one location in Franklin, Massachusetts.
Haven Hot works to be as inclusive as possible, which includes having seasonal vegetarian options and all of their chicken being halal meat.
“What’s interesting about Haven Hot Chicken is that it’s contemporary American food,” Tekin said. “First and second generation Muslims living in the U.S., this is contemporary American food that they can enjoy, and it also goes to our core values of being inclusive. We want to accommodate everybody.”
Haven Hot has collaborated with and sponsored the different universities of Connecticut, including Quinnipiac University, Fairfield University and the University of Connecticut. Two years ago, when UConn men’s basketball won their second title in two years, Haven Hot did an NIL deal with Alex Karaban, the forward who is projected to be a first-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
Haven Hot sponsors Quinnipiac athletics as well, as their name and logo run along the boards in the M&T Bank Hockey Arena, and they have done giveaways at games in the past. Two years ago, then first-year public relations major Emily Meyer won a $500 gift card giveaway that Haven Hot hosted at a men’s hockey game.
“I kind of forgot about the giveaway during the game, but when I looked up, everybody screamed because it said ‘Emily Meyer’ on the jumbotron,” Meyer said. “I immediately freaked out and ran back to the lobby, and they told me to download an app. Then, boom, I had $500 to Haven Hot Chicken.”
“I remember being a college kid, and something as simple as getting a free meal or even a free sandwich was a big deal,” Tekin said. “We want to truly be involved and engaged in the communities we are a part of, and one of the best ways to do that is through schools.”
Quality is also key to Haven Hot’s values. Their company motto is CCJSD, which stands for crispy, crunchy, juicy, spicy and delicious, and they care about the product they are serving to customers.
“Our process takes three days, and we do it all in house,” Sobocinski said. “We don’t buy frozen, we buy fresh. No antibiotics ever, halal certified. We bring it in, marinate it in real buttermilk overnight, use real egg whites, and then hand bread and double fry it in high oleic oil, which is better for cholesterol.”
“We try to do what we can to deliver a premium product that’s made with high quality ingredients,” Tekin said.
The Assistant Director for Academic Advising at Quinnipiac, and local foodie Rosa Nieves values good cuisine and inclusivity, as well as good service.
“I went to Dave’s Hot Chicken once, and it’s the last time I’ll be there. The wait time was incredibly long and the atmosphere wasn’t friendly,” Nieves said. “I asked my friend ‘do we really want to dine here, or do we want to go to Haven Hot?’ So we went to Haven Hot. The service is fast, I always know what I’m getting and I know it’s always good.”
Above all else though, Haven Hot values hospitality, and serving their community. Sobocinski kept claiming the Haven Hot employees work “with us” and not “for us,” and it’s that kind of phrasing that shows how much the company cares about its employees and hospitality.
“When you’re asking people to come in and spend money, what are you doing for them,” Sobocinski said. “We understand that when you take care of your community, they reciprocate by coming into the restaurant. Being a part of the communities we are in is a really big deal for us.”
BIRDCODE
BIRDCODE was founded in November of 2020, also during the Covid-19 pandemic, by husband and wife Phil and Brandi Killoran. Now expanding to six total stores, BIRDCODE began as an idea from Brandi to bring Southern food to Connecticut.
“My wife grew up on the Florida Georgia border, in a little 1400 person trailer park town,” Phil Killoran said. “All of the food at BIRDCODE is her family’s food and neighbor’s food, scaled up with a higher quality ingredient.”
All of the recipes and many of the items came from Brandi’s mother’s kitchen, straight to Connecticut.
“All of our recipes are from the heart, from my mother-in-law,” Phil said. “Our banana pudding, which is one of the things we’re known for…I used to watch my mother-in-law make that in the trailer on the stove. She’s since passed, so we’ve gotten to push her legacy through that product.”
Family and the overall dynamics of a team are ingrained in the values of the Killoran’s and BIRDCODE. The company works to find talented people that have lofty career aspirations, and they work to try and accomplish those goals.
“My operator in West Hartford started with me as the first ever team member,” Phil Killoran said. “He started at the breading table, worked his way to the prep and then started into service. It took him three and a half years, but he went from walking to work everyday to this amazing career.”
BIRDCODE’s ingredients and menu are of utmost importance, as they expand their menu and add different options to ensure every customer’s satisfaction. They too serve halal chicken, on top of other favorites like milkshakes and “naughty sodas,” which are sodas with vanilla creamer.
“My whole deal is never to alienate a customer,” Killoran said. “We work to create an environment where a mom and her three kids can come in and get the type of product that she wants and what they want. For us, it’s more about a culinary experience for the consumer.”
Along with the banana pudding, BIRDCODE’s chicken sandwich is a favorite among customers, and Killoran believes it to be the best on the market.
“I’ll put the BIRDCODE chicken sandwich up against anyone,” Killoran said. “It’s the No. 1 chicken sandwich in Connecticut, and I plan to make it the No. 1 in the United States.”
Though BIRDCODE only has six locations thus far, they are looking to expand into other parts of the country, including Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Ideally, BIRDCODE will have more than 250 stores by 2031.
“Even if it only ends up being 100 units, we want the right people that are going to be brand ambassadors in the community,” Killoran said. “We need to make sure that the franchisee is satisfied with our brands and what we’re putting out there every single day, so you don’t go too fast and lose control.”
Why is this trend happening?
So, in a state that is primarily dominated by pizza, with New Haven restaurants like Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria and Sally’s Apizza becoming known across the country, why did Haven Hot Chicken and BIRDCODE decide to specialize in chicken and bring it to Connecticut?
“It’s truly something different,” Griffin, the former food writer, said. “If you’re a food person in Connecticut, you probably tried all the pizza places. I think Haven Hot and BIRDCODE saw the national trend toward hot chicken and decided they could get in on that, and they’ve clearly had success, because people like it.”
Despite potential “beef” between the companies, Griffin believes that is truly how the fast food chicken craze began.
“Every time I turned around in the mid 2010s, there’d be another burger restaurant, and then another burger restaurant,” Griffin said. “I think it kind of just fell into place like ‘oh, maybe we haven’t given fried chicken as much of a chance.’ I think it’s something new and interesting.”
Erik Ofgang, a freelance journalist and former food writer for Hearst, believes Connecticut is the perfect market for chicken restaurants like Haven Hot and BIRDCODE to prosper.
“There are pockets of Connecticut where food is taken really seriously, and I think it’s an interesting market with a lot of demand,” Ofgang said. “It’s not a place where there’s 30 hot chicken locations to go to in any town, there’s maybe one or two, so it’s not like the market is saturated. I think there’s an opportunity to bring these types of food to the state.”
Ties to Connecticut
Despite not yet being household names like Chick-Fil-A or Dave’s Hot Chicken, Haven Hot and BIRDCODE are looking to expand and bring their love to chicken all across the country.
Ofgang believes each of the company’s uniqueness is what will make them successful, even if they leave the Connecticut area.
“I think each has their own style and their own way of doing things, so I’m not sure they’re going to bring Connecticut chicken to the world, but they’re going to bring Haven Hot chicken, and BIRDCODE chicken, to the world,” Ofgang said.
However, as both companies continue to grow, the co-founders expressed how maintaining a connection to Connecticut is of extreme importance to them.
“I was born and raised here, Connecticut is my home,” Killoran said. “It’s where I met my wife and where all my partners are. This is the community that supported us from the beginning, and I cannot express how grateful I am for the community here.”
While both restaurants may be competing for customers, they do share one common goal: serving high-quality chicken to the food lovers of Connecticut. That was and still is their No. 1 priority.
“At the end of the day, you can take Haven Hot Chicken out of Connecticut, but it is still called Haven, which is an ode to New Haven,” Tekin said. “We plan on keeping the company in Connecticut forever.”