Website: https://princeshotchicken.com/
Prince’s Hot Chicken is a Nashville, Tennessee restaurant that serves hot chicken, the spicy fried chicken style for which Nashville is known. The restaurant describes itself as “Nashville’s original hot chicken,” tracing its dish back more than 100 years to Thornton Prince. It states that it “is the original and remains the gold standard for hot chicken.” The business operates multiple locations across the Nashville area and remains family-operated.
Menu
Prince’s serves hot chicken in the form of fried chicken sandwiches, tenders, and plates, accompanied by classic Southern sides. The menu is organized into categories the restaurant lists as Chicken, Sides, Drinks & Desserts, and Retail. Items referenced include fried chicken sandwiches, chicken tenders, and chicken wings.
Sides referenced on the site include collard greens, baked beans, coleslaw, and French fries. The restaurant’s hot chicken is its signature item, prepared in the spiced, fried style that originated with the Prince family recipe. The restaurant also offers online ordering and catering, and maintains a retail category alongside its food menu. Because specific item-level descriptions and spice-level details are presented through the site’s interactive menu rather than as fixed text, only the categories and items confirmed on the site are described here.
About
According to the restaurant, Prince’s Hot Chicken originated during the Great Depression era. The site recounts that Thornton Prince, described as “quite the ladies’ man,” was served a fiery, pepper-laden plate of fried chicken by a girlfriend as an act of revenge. Rather than being deterred, Prince “asked for seconds, and, at that moment, the legend was born.” He then “perfected the recipe for Hot Chicken and opened up a restaurant, Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack.”
The business remains in the family nearly a century later. The site notes that “Thornton Prince’s great niece, Ms. Andre Prince Jeffries, is still serving the legendary dish.” The restaurant asserts its standing as Nashville’s original hot chicken purveyor, noting that the hot chicken trend has since “caught on like wildfire throughout the South.”
Location & Contact
Prince’s Hot Chicken operates several Nashville-area locations. The South location is at 5814 Nolensville Pike, Nashville, TN 37211, phone (615) 810-9388. A location at Assembly Food Hall is at 5055 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203, phone (629) 895-4688. There is a location at Nashville International Airport (BNA) at 1 Terminal Drive, Nashville, TN 37214, in the Gate C/D concourse. A Tanger Outlets location is at 4060 Cane Ridge Parkway, Antioch, TN 37013, phone (615) 339-0600.
Additional Information
The website provides pages for the menu, locations, about, catering, online ordering, and careers. With multiple locations across Nashville and Antioch, including outposts at Assembly Food Hall and the Nashville airport, the restaurant positions itself as the original source of Nashville hot chicken and continues to operate as a family business.
Profile compiled from the company’s official website (princeshotchicken.com).