If you have never had Nashville hot chicken, Prince's is the place to start. The brand claims to be the city's original hot chicken, and the story behind it reads like a piece of local folklore: somewhere around the Great Depression, a ladies' man named Thornton Prince was served a plate of fried chicken loaded with a devilish amount of peppers and spices by a scorned lover as revenge. Instead of recoiling, he loved it and asked for seconds, and the recipe was born. Prince opened his first shack, Prince's BBQ Chicken Shack, around 1945 on Jefferson Street and 28th Avenue in the Hadley Park neighborhood, later moving downtown to an area known as Hell's Half Acre, where it became a favorite among country music singers. Thornton Prince died in the 1970s, and the business passed through family before reaching Ms. André Prince Jeffries, known as Ms. André, in the early 1980s. In 1988 she moved Prince's to its current location on Ewing Drive and dropped the word 'BBQ' from the name, and a few years later she expanded the menu to include six levels of heat. In 1996, state representative Bill Purcell passed a resolution declaring Prince's Hot Chicken Shack the best restaurant in Tennessee. The first hot chicken festival was organized in East Nashville in 2007, the same year the brand opened a second location, Prince's Hot Chicken South.
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The Tanger Outlets location sits at 4060 Cane Ridge Parkway in Antioch, part of the Century Farms Development, just off I-24. It is open Monday through Saturday from 10:00am to 10:00pm and Sunday from 10:00am to 7:00pm, and you can reach them at (615) 339-0600. The spot offers online ordering and catering, which is handy if you would rather pick up your order than sit in, and it carries a 4.3-star rating from 615 reviews.
The menu is built around hot fried chicken served with pickles, coleslaw, crinkle-cut fries, and sides like baked beans and collard greens. The airport location gives a good sense of the range, serving the original Nashville hot chicken alongside tenders, sandwiches, and sides like fries, coleslaw, and mac and cheese, with your choice of heat level. There is also retail on sale: T-shirts featuring the brand's cartoon character and phrases like 'Prince's Hot Chicken,' 'The Original Hot Chicken,' and 'Have Mercy, It's Hot!'
If the Tanger location is not convenient, there are other Nashville spots to choose from. Prince's Hot Chicken South is at 5814 Nolensville Pike, open Monday through Saturday from 11am to 10pm and closed on Sundays, at (615) 810-9388. The Assembly Food Hall location downtown at 5055 Broadway runs Sunday through Thursday from 10:30am to 10:00pm and Friday and Saturday from 10:30am to midnight, at (629) 895-4688. There is also a location at the Nashville International Airport, at the beginning of the Gate C/D concourse, and a Jefferson Street spot listed as coming soon. Between the outlets, the south location, the downtown hall, and the airport, you are never far from a plate of the chicken that started the whole Nashville trend.
