Which Nashville restaurant is widely credited with popularizing Nashville hot chicken?

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack is widely credited with popularizing Nashville hot chicken.

Nashville hot chicken is a spicy fried-chicken style associated with Nashville, Tennessee. The chicken is typically marinated, fried, and brushed or coated with a hot pepper sauce or seasoned oil. It is commonly served on white bread with pickle slices, which provide a cooling contrast to the heat.

Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack is often described as the city’s original or oldest hot-chicken restaurant. The Prince family’s story links the dish to Thornton Prince and Nashville’s African American culinary tradition. Because the recipe developed through oral and restaurant traditions, details of the earliest origin story are sometimes told differently.

Hattie B’s later helped bring the style to a wider national audience, but it is not the restaurant most commonly credited with originating Nashville hot chicken. The defining feature is the spicy coating, not one fixed pepper variety.