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Nashville-based Helen’s Hot Chicken is opening its first Atlanta restaurant in early 2019. Helen’s is located in the 200 Edgewood student housing complex close to Sweet Auburn Curb Market and Georgia State University downtown.
Helen’s hot chicken menu includes breast and leg quarters, wingettes, and tenders in four levels of heat: plain, mild, hot, and hella hot. Chicken is made-to-order and doesn’t drop into the fryer until ordered at the counter. The restaurant’s fried seafood like shrimp, whiting, and catfish and its specialty drinks such as hella mango tea are also very popular with regulars.
Helen’s, owned by Jeremy Mallard who named the restaurant for his grandmother, started out as a small, roadside trailer on Rosa Parks Boulevard close to Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park before opening a permanent location near Fisk University in 2014. The hot chicken chain expanded quickly to six locations — including two in Nashville as well as restaurants in Murfreesboro, Madison, and Clarksville, Tennessee and Lewisville, Texas north of Dallas and Fort Worth.
200 Edgewood Avenue, Atlanta. helenshotchicken.com.