03-07-2025
The Music City Hot Chicken Fest returns to East Nashville
The 2025 Music City Hot Chicken Fest, featuring a firetruck parade, an amateur cooking competition and the city's best hot chicken joints, burns into action at East Park on July 4.
Why it matters: Hot chicken is a uniquely Nashville dish that's been exported around the world.
The inside coop: Local hot chicken restaurants will set up shop to feed festivalgoers, including Prince's, Smack Ya Momma Chicken Shack Express, Hurts Hot Chicken, Eugene's, Nashville Chicken and Waffles, Hattie B's, Momma Joy's and Bill's Hot Fish and Chicken. We suggest trying them all.
Think of it as a sort of around the world challenge that's also a really bad idea.
Yazoo will provide the beer. There's also a fun zone for kids and live music.
The amateur contest is a prestigious badge of honor for home chefs who have mastered Nashville's vintage dish.
Flashback: Hot Chicken Fest launched in 2007. It was the brainchild of then-Mayor Bill Purcell, who explained his thought process to the Bitter Southerner in an excellent story about the history of the dish.
