How A Jilted Lover's Revenge Inspired This Tennessee Chicken Joint

If you've been aware of any fast-food chicken or American cuisine restaurants within the last 10 or so years, you've likely witnessed the rise of Nashville hot chicken in the greater American consciousness. This spicy hot chicken dish which hails, unsurprisingly, from Nashville, TN, has shown up on national fast food ads and dine-in restaurant menus the country over, from Maine to California (as well as getting a hot dog treatment from home cooks). Not bad for a dish that got its start from an angry lover's act of revenge.

You see, the origin story of Nashville hot chicken reads like a soap opera, albeit one with less murder and more spices. The story goes that in the 1930s, Thornton Prince was a good-looking fella, who stayed out late one Saturday night — as was his custom — presumably with a woman. His main squeeze was stewing about this at home until she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Rather than confront Prince about it, his lover turned to craftier means of expressing herself, collecting all the hottest spices from her pantry and mixing them up, before coating Prince's Sunday morning fried chicken with them. Her plan backfired, though, in a big way, because Prince not only loved the chicken, he replicated it and opened Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, now a beloved Nashville treasure.

Today, the OG Prince's Hot Chicken Shack is owned by Thornton Prince's great-niece, Andre Prince Jeffries, and currently operates several other locations (though the restaurant has since moved on from its address at Jefferson Street and 28th Avenue). The restaurant has moved with the times, too, as Prince's once only accepted cash, and now offers online ordering at some of its locations. In the beginning, too, the restaurant was open late — until 4 a.m. on weekends — while now most locations close before midnight.

From her place as the head of this historic eatery, Jeffries has watched the national fascination with Nashville hot chicken take off, including a Hot Chicken Festival, plus loads of copycat restaurants. The trend has incorporated national chains, like Dave's Hot Chicken, and locally owned ventures that have added the dish (sometimes in sandwich form and even in a cauliflower iteration) to menus. You can even purchase hot chicken seasoning. As its website says, though, "Prince's Hot Chicken is the original and remains the gold standard for hot chicken."