Dave’s Hot Chicken opens a restaurant in Bloomington

Bloomington, Indiana – One of the newest eateries in the downtown area of Bloomington will open its new location on Thursday near the junction of East Kirkwood Avenue and South Grant Street.

Customers can place online orders or come into the restaurant in person. From 10:30 a.m. to midnight on Sunday through Wednesday and from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. on Thursday through Saturday, the fast-casual restaurant business will be open. Since the first Dave’s Hot Chicken opened in 2017, more than 100 sites have opened. The new store is one of them.

The restaurant franchise announced plans to replace The Pourhouse Café, which had occupied the building, by opening a facility in Bloomington in one to two years in May 2021. In October 2020, the neighborhood café closed.

Dan Bennett, the general manager of the Bloomington store and a native of the city, expressed his excitement to return “home” after spending 26 years managing various restaurant chain sites throughout the Midwest.

“Dave’s Hot Chicken is the exact right thing for Kirkwood Avenue,” Bennett said. “It’s a new, fast-growing and exciting concept.”

The eatery specializes in hot chicken sliders and tenders made in the Nashville manner. Consumers can select from one of the seven “hot” levels, which range from “no spice” to “reaper,” by signing a waiver. With “Dave’s sauce,” a creamy chipotle mayo sauce, all slider and tender dinners are served. Also, there are three different milkshake types, house-made French fries, macaroni and cheese, and kale slaw on the menu.

“We were started by a classically trained chef so we do Nashville-style hot chicken like it would be done if a fine dining chef did it,” Bennett said. “We don’t try to be all things to all people; we do what we do perfectly well, and we think our product is good enough that that’s all we need to do.”

Dave’s employs free-range, halal chicken, according to Bennett. Before being prepared, the chicken is brined in a specialized brine for more than eight hours. After that, one of the seven spices is added before the chicken is deep-fried and breaded.

The restaurant’s area coach, Andy Qualiato, focuses on franchise growth through patron relations, restaurant management, employee recruitment, and employee retention. He said that Dave’s will offer IU students and citizens of Bloomington a lively and enjoyable environment. Graffiti and creative murals adorn the walls. The IU trident emblem, the Bloomington skyline, and the graffiti words “Bloomington” and “Hoosier” may all be seen on one wall.

There will be more than 40 seats available inside the restaurant, and there will be more than 50 seats available on the front and side porches.

“We are excited about turning our guests into fans of Dave’s Hot Chicken,” Qualiato said.

The hot chicken restaurant with a Nashville-style menu is already popular among some IU students. Freshman Caleb Williams, who is interested in finance and accounting, expressed his excitement for Dave’s to open in Bloomington after visiting other sites. The atmosphere and the sliders, according to him, are his favorite aspects of the restaurant.

“I’m from a pretty small town in general so I really don’t get the opportunity to have one of those really cool restaurants that started on the West coast,” Williams said.