Timing and life doesn’t always give you what you want, and my husband had a work conference during our mid-winter break in Nashville. Nashville?!! My twin teenagers were not the most enthusiastic about this trip. Being from Seattle, February usually has us dreaming of somewhere warm like Hawaii. And mid-winter break can be a longer break so sometimes we can even get to far off destinations especially if they have a direct flight from Seattle. But if you’ve been following along on my instagram, you might remember that we ended up having a great time. We found a replica Parthenon, we enjoyed the National Museum of African American Music, we took in a concert at the Grand Old Opry, we learned about print-making and we also found the coolest bathroom in the whole world at Nashville Zoo. We also went to a handful of chocolate shops and decided to make it our mission to eat as much Nashville hot chicken as we could.
How much Nashville hot chicken can you eat in 5 days in Nashville?
We were inspired to search for hot chicken in Nashville because of a taco tour we did with Visit Oxnard in January. At the time, my family was defeated after only a few taco shops. This time the guys were more prepared for the challenge and were determined to eat hot chicken at least every day of our trip, and maybe even for two of their meals. At a couple places they ended up with fried chicken when we ate tacos so we felt like technically that was ‘hot chicken’ too.
Here are our favorites of the places we tried:
We were in line so long at the Hattie B’s on Lower Broadway right near the National Museum of African American Music that we missed our reservation for something at the Country Music Hall of Fame. (I think the lineup was over 30 minutes long!) But we were a little tired and famished and the fried chicken and sweet tea here hit the spot. There were quite a few sides to choose from and I have no idea how people eat anything spicier than the lowest spice. It was fiery! But craveably delicious. We ate outside and people in the line that wrapped around the eating area kept asking us about what we ordered and how spicy should they get. This is the one chicken place both of my guys wanted to revisit and still talk about now that we are home.
We went to Red’s 615 kitchen because it was close to the Nashville Parthenon and I found easy parking. We really liked the seasoning on the hot chicken here. The fries were also really good. The day we came here someone put in a giant takeout order and the kitchen got a bit overwhelmed. But there is seating outdoors and indoors and a playground nearby as well as the Parthenon so this would be a good stop for families looking for hot chicken too.
We ended up at Helen’s Hot Chicken because we missed a turn-off trying to get somewhere else and it turned out to be a fabulous stop. We were hungry on our way between visiting a chocolate shop and heading to the zoo and we needed lunch. I took a wrong turn and stopped to figure out where we were going and saw this chicken shop so I sent the guys in and then we ended up eating in the car. They forgot to order sauces and ketchup or this might have been our favorite but even plain this was really delicious chicken. I got mine with fried okra instead of French fries and I’ve never had fried okra before (and the guys said they preferred French Fries to okra but they were glad they tried it).
How did we pick our hot chicken choices?
Like most of our travels we usually picked one or two activities for the day and then we tried to find hot chicken near our adventures. We stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and had a car so it was easy to get around. For example, the day we visited the Country Music Hall of Fame we walked to Hattie B’s because it was close and the guys had read reviews and thought it sounded like it would be good.
Also how does one eat actual hot Nashville hot chicken?
I could not get past the mildest spice and my teens didn’t do much better. I actually googled if you could die from eating food that was too spicy while we were on this trip and the research I found suggested that with most things we would probably be okay and that spicy food might actual be a good thing. (but this study is from 2015 so I have no idea and I can’t imagine how this is true at all. I always feel like I’m going to die if I eat anything too spicy.)
Do you have a favorite spot for Nashville hot chicken? And how spicy do you get your chicken?
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
3 thoughts on “A Nashville hot chicken tour with my twin teenagers for mid-winter break”
Comments are closed.