Hot Chicken Takeover is a community-minded restaurant serving up juicy, perfectly fried chicken rubbed with a cayenne-infused paste. The fast-casual restaurant located in Columbus, Ohio has a mission to provide great food, a great experience, and supportive, intentional employment to motivated adults impacted by homelessness, incarceration and other crises arising from poverty.
The birth of Hot Chicken Takeover began after founder Joe Deloss experienced Nashville’s famous hot chicken culture for the first time. After returning to Columbus, Joe tested out new twists on his own hot chicken recipe, relying on their friends to test each iteration. Soon, he started serving friends of friends and then finally served his first a group of strangers.
Hot Chicken Takeover came to life as a small pop-up chicken window in Olde Towne East, a developing community east of downtown Columbus. Every weekend they’d sell until the chicken ran out. It was there that Hot Chicken Takeover started to live out its mission of providing supportive employment to adults adversely impacted by incarceration and poverty.
We participated with other investors in an equity round of investment that provided the capital necessary to expand and open new restaurant locations and build the infrastructure necessary to continue the company’s mission.
Last week, Access Ventures was able to celebrate alongside Joe and his team as they opened their second Hot Chicken Takeover location in the Clintonville neighborhood of Columbus. This is a huge milestone in the life of the company and one that we were happy to help make possible alongside others.
As expected, the line was out the door for the grand opening and ribbon cutting. People from the Clintonville community and beyond lined up to get their hot chicken fix. The most exciting thing in seeing Hot Chicken Takeover grow is watching a market being served with a quality product that they want and seeing jobs created for more individuals looking for a fair chance at a new career.
This is just the first of many more achievements to come in growing Hot Chicken Takeover and we are excited to see what Joe and his team will do next!
