Dave’s Hot Chicken, a rapidly expanding Nashville-style fried chicken chain that started in East Hollywood, will open its first central Ohio location at 3590 W. Dublin Granville Rd. on Friday, Sept. 30. We got a little preview of it, so take a look inside!
This location is the first of three announced locations – another is due soon at 15 E. 15th Ave. near campus and another on Polaris Parkway in Westerville – but the Dave’s team plans to expand with a dozen or more stores in the area. The Dublin shop is a stand-alone building that was formerly a PayLess shoe store.
The decor is bright, colorful, and energetic. Guests can hit up the drive-through or come in for a sit-down meal. There’s even a small patio out front.
The menu at Dave’s Hot Chicken is pretty focused: mainly fried chicken tenders and sliders with sides of fries, mac and cheese, kale slaw, and milkshakes.
Ordering is fairly simple. They group meals by combinations of two tenders, two sliders, a tender + a slider, or a single slider. Meals automatically come with fries, sliced bread (for the tenders) or a bun (for the sliders), plus kale slaw, pickles, and their house sauce.
For your chicken, you can choose a range of seasoning that goes from no spice to a Carolina reaper. And you can mix and match, like I did: the #3 with a medium tender and a hot sandwich.
We enjoyed each of the meals we tasted. The chicken was very tender and generously seasoned. The portions were a good deal for the price, although the meals don’t include drinks.
The tenders are simply huge, and the sliders include two smaller pieces of chicken on a potato bun.
I especially liked the slider, with the hot pieces of chicken, a bit of the Dave’s sauce (like a sweet aioli), plus pickles and kale slaw. Good combination all around.
You can upgrade your fries to cheese fries as well, which we highly recommend.
And the side of mac and cheese is good, too. Very creamy.
The official opening for the Dublin Dave’s Hot Chicken is Friday, Sept. 30. Find it at 3590 W. Dublin Granville Rd., in the Sun Center plaza. See menus, locations, and more details at daveshotchicken.com.
