They Say Hell Hath no fury like a woman scorned… But some folks like a little heat, including Thornton Prince – the father of Nashville’s hot chicken. Even in the height of the Great Depression, Thornton Prince knew how to have a good time. He enjoyed the nightlife and had a well-earned reputation as being quite the ladies’ man. Of course, one person who was not too thrilled with that reputation was his steady girl.
While we don’t know if Prince came home one night with a faint hint of perfume or a smudge of lipstick on his collar, we do know that after another one of Prince’s nights out, his scorned lover wanted revenge.
And using Prince’s love of fried chicken as bait, she concocted the perfect recipe.
Instead of a lecture the next morning, Prince awoke to the sizzlin’ smell of fried chicken. The trap set, Prince’s jilted lover served up a plate of homemade fried chicken. Without noticing the devilish amount of peppers and spices she had sprinkled on the chicken, Prince dug in. Much to her dismay, Prince didn’t fall over weeping in pain. Nope, he asked for seconds, and, at that moment, the legend was born.
Prince perfected the recipe for Hot Chicken and opened up a restaurant – Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack. Almost 100 years later, a lot had changed in Nashville. But not Prince’s. Thornton Prince’s great niece, Ms. Andre Prince Jeffries, is still serving the legendary dish that Nashvillians crave. In the last few years, the hot chicken trend has caught on like wildfire throughout the South, but Prince’s Hot Chicken is the original and remains the gold standard for hot chicken.
