Street Food Sensation Dave’s Hot Chicken Earns First Brick and Mortar Location

East Hollywood street food player Dave's Hot Chicken is getting its first permanent location already, just a handful of months after opening in a Thai Town parking lot. The Nashville-style hot chicken specialists have proven quite popular, and now they'll move south to a space just west of Vermont on Beverly.

Dave's Hot Chicken jumps into Karma Lounge, a strip mall nighttime spot right off Koreatown along Beverly. The team confirmed to Eater that the lease had already been signed, and construction on the space was about to get seriously underway. That still leaves plenty of time to stop off at the original hot chicken location just steps from Tabula Rasa Bar though, as the new physical address likely won't be ready for quite a while.

That said, the Dave's team has certainly been known to move fast. Since debuting back in May, the popular late night option has more than doubled their existing capacity, adding fryers and staff while expanding the menu into several new heat levels, as well as mini hot chicken sandwich sliders. The jump to a new brick and mortar will only help to add more nuance to the spice levels and expand the menu further, while parking out front will be a boon to anyone's who's spent time trying to get to Dave's, but ended up just circling the neighborhood instead.

Farley Elliott

The move into a brick and mortar location for Dave's just goes to emphasize the true staying power of Nashville-style hot chicken, due in no small part to Howlin' Ray's in Chinatown. Others like Hotville Chicken, Gus's, and even non-spicy newcomers like Phat Birds only give the scene more depth still, which all bodes well for Dave's Hot Chicken and their plans to thrive along Beverly soon.

• The Most Famous Hot Chicken in the World Just Came to Los Angeles [ELA]