“Outrageously hot.” That’s how Dave’s Hot Chicken UK managing director Jim Attwood describes the brand’s signature spice rub, the rather ominously named Reaper. All things considered; it sounds like that could be something of an understatement.
The Reaper is named after the Carolina reaper chili pepper, which has an average Scoville Heat Unit of over 2.2 million (for context, a jalapeño pepper typically measures between 2,500 and 8,000 Scoville Heat Units, meaning the Reaper is more than 300 times hotter). So spicy is it that Dave’s Hot Chicken, which made its UK debut early last month with a restaurant on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Rupert Street in London, requires any diner to first sign a waiver warning of the risks associated with eating it, which include sweating, indigestion, shortness of breath, vomiting and diarrhoea, and, in extreme circumstances, even heart attack.
Reaper taste tests with UK diners ahead of the London restaurant’s opening reportedly left participants in tears, and apparently even led to discussions on whether to include it as an option on the UK menu - although it was likely that this was a way of just adding more spice to the brand’s launch.
Suffice to say, when Restaurant is asked whether it would like to try a Reaper tender, Attwood gently steers us away from it. “I’d recommend starting out with a medium,” he adds. “Nice and spicy, but not too hot.”
Attwood himself has tried the Reaper twice and by his own admission says it isn’t something he would choose to order. Yet he notes that it has been popular with London diners in the weeks since Dave’s opened its doors, assuaging any fears that the capital’s foodies might not be able to handle the heat. “There are those who do like it,” he insists. “We’ve sat with people who enjoy it and in the opening week we had lots of guests coming to try it as a challenge. And lots of them could handle it. We’ve also seen groups sharing one between them.”
A hype machine
It’s the first Wednesday of 2025. For workers in the capital, this will be their first week back at the office following the festive break, but despite this the streets are mostly quiet and restaurants, on the whole, are empty. Indeed, many appear to still be on Christmas hiatus; January, after all, isn’t exactly considered a banner month for trading.
At Dave’s Hot Chicken, though, the atmosphere is very different. Outside, a pair of bouncers man the door and oversee an excitable queue that stretches down Rupert Street. Inside, the mood is energised: scores of diners are either queuing to order or hungrily waiting to hear their number to be called at the collection point. Every table is filled with groups, many of them teenagers or in their early 20s, chowing down on trays of hand-breaded chicken tenders and sliders that have been spiced to order.
The brand specialises in Nashville chicken, a specific style of fried chicken that’s rubbed or covered with a spice blend or paste after it is removed from the fryer. It is then served atop slices of white bread often with sliced pickles and slaw.
There are seven spice levels available in total at Dave’s Hot Chicken, ranging from No Spice to Lite Mild, Mild, Medium, Hot, Extra Hot, and, of course, Reaper. At one table nearby a group laughs nervously as they survey the tender roulette box in front of them: 10 pieces of chicken, four with Mild spice, five with Medium, and one with Reaper.
Since it was announced last summer that Dave’s Hot Chicken was coming to the UK, hype for the brand has soared, bolstered no doubt by its strong social media presence. On TikTok alone it has more than three million followers, and more than a million and a half on Instagram.
“We were confident London was going to be popular and have high demand in the first few weeks,” says Attwood. “This isn’t just the first Dave’s Hot Chicken in the UK, but also the first one in Europe. This is a brand that has millions social media followers around the globe. We built up expectations through socials and PR stunt activation in the weeks leading up to the launch and it gave good indicators that there was a huge amount of interest.”
Even so, convincing diners to come out and queue for your brand in the midst of winter and with Christmas just weeks away is no small feat, but from day one there’s been no let-up. “It’s exceeded expectations, definitely,” Attwood continues. “I’ve worked in hospitality for more than 20 years and never had the perfect scenario of queues around the block all day every day. Even during the winter storms, we still had people queuing from 11am. And it hasn’t really abated into January.
“Now we’ve got through Christmas and the new year we’re discussing our next plans, and we have the confidence to accelerate them.”
A market with scale
Those plans are focused on nationwide growth, with Dave’s Hot Chicken previously saying it is aiming to open 60 sites across the UK & Ireland in the coming years. The brand is the latest in a growing list of US fried chicken chains looking to rule the roost in the UK. While KFC, which first landed in the UK back in 1965, was for decades the sole dominant player in the market, today it is challenged by the likes of Popeyes, Slim Chickens and Wingstop, which have all built up considerable nationwide estates in short timeframes – though none of them have enough restaurants yet to rival The Colonel.
There’s more to come too, with Atlanta-based fried chicken chain Chick-fil-A set to return to UK shores later this year having previously tried and failed to get a foothold in the market back in 2019.
Dave’s Hot Chicken was founded by childhood friends Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan and Tommy Rubenyan in 2017 as a pop up in LA and went on to open its first bricks and mortar site in East Hollywood the same year. It now boasts more than 200 sites across America, as well as locations in Canada and the Middle East, and counts actor Samuel L. Jackson and singer Usher among its backers.
Premium QSR has been in growth for some time and QSR chicken in particular has seen huge scale. It feels like that chicken shop culture is sustainable. Dave’s Hot Chicken is a distinctive brand and there’s no one really owning that hot, spicy premium fried chicken market at scale right now
The brand’s arrival in the UK has come about as a result of a partnership with Azzurri Group, whose portfolio also encompasses Italian casual dining chains Zizzi and ASK Italian; QSR pasta brand Coco di Mama; and fast casual Mexican concept Boojum. “We’ve always looked at ways of diversifying our portfolio,” says Attwood, who joined Azzurri back in 2018 as managing director of Coco di Mama. “With the ongoing cost pressures we’re facing, combined now with the National Insurance rises that are about to be implemented, it’s about expanding our portfolio to have different brands that we can accelerate at different points.
“Premium QSR has been in growth for some time and QSR chicken in particular has seen huge scale. It feels like that chicken shop culture is sustainable. Dave’s Hot Chicken is a distinctive brand and there’s no one really owning that hot, spicy premium fried chicken market at scale right now. Its portions are generous, and it’s a cool brand.”
That last point, in particular, will be key to the success of Dave’s Hot Chicken in the UK as it looks to expand its estate in the months and years to come. The brand’s core demographic is social media savvy Gen Zers and Millennials, and everything about the vibe and aesthetic speaks to this. As with its sites in the US, the design of the London restaurant focuses on LA-style street art created by US-based collective Splatter Haus. So integral is the look to the Dave’s Hot Chicken brand that Azzurri had Splatter Haus flown over to design the restaurant, and also had it train a group of UK street artists in its style to ensure consistency in the look with future openings.
Maintaining consistency
A lot of work has gone in to ensuring consistency between Dave’s Hot Chicken in the US and the UK. The menu is replicated almost identically, with diners able to choose between four combo meals that each feature a mix of tenders and/or sliders served with slaw, pickles, sliced white bread, and a pot of Dave’s house sauce.
The spices themselves are proprietarily made by Dave’s Hot Chicken in the US and shipped over. The chicken, which is Red Tractor assured, is brined in pickle juice before being mixed in a special ‘slurry’ ahead of being breaded, fried and spiced. All food served on the UK menu has been signed off by the eponymous Dave Kopushyan who along with fellow co-founder Arman Oganesyan has worked closely with Attwood and the team at Azzurri to oversee the London launch.
My single business point of nervousness was whether I’d be able to recruit 100 people in the run up to Christmas
Attwood also spoke to some of the Dave’s Hot Chicken franchisees in the US ahead of the launch, which helped inform Azzurri’s operational approach. In particular, it was made clear that the restaurant would need a significant staffing roster. “They told us we needed to recruit 100 people. I wasn’t even sure we had the space for them on site. That was one of the learning curves, though. We were sceptical, but you do need that many people to understand and handle the volume.”
Surprisingly, perhaps, given the speed of the restaurant’s opening and the scale of the recruitment drive, filling the vacancies didn’t present much of a challenge. “My single business point of nervousness was whether I’d be able to recruit 100 people in the run up to Christmas,” Attwood continues. “But it wasn’t hard at all. I think it’s about the pull of the brand. I run other brands and it’s not easy to recruit in central London, but the employer value proposition of working on the launch of a brand like Dave’s Hot Chicken has translated across to recruitment attraction.”
Plans for growth
The decision to launch Dave’s Hot Chicken in the UK with a flagship central London location was made early on and Attwood and his team looked at a handful of sites before opting for the site on Shaftesbury Avenue. This is a tactic that flies in the face of other US chicken entrants, including Chick-fil-A, which chose Reading for its debut UK site, and Popeyes, which opted to go out east and make its debut in Westfield Stratford.
“As we better understood the brand in the US it was clear a central location was the right and more sensible route,” Attwood says.
So where does Dave’s Hot Chicken go next? The group is hoping to open three or four more sites in 2025 with a focus on not only growing the brand in London, but also taking its first steps regionally. “We’re open-minded and considering our options. From an operational simplicity perspective, greater London is easier initially.”
Attwood says he expects to open a couple more sites in the next six months in and around London but is open to exploring regional locations this calendar year and already has a few sites in advanced negotiations. With the UK currently in the grip of fried chicken fever, there seems not point in waiting to spread its wings.
“At some point we’re going to have to go to another city,” he says. “And if we’re confident, which we are, then we should take that step sooner rather than later.
“We’re getting demand for people wanting us to open all over the country, which is great. Now our focus is on figuring out the right sequencing of where to open, and when.”
