Music City Hot Chicken Festival

Created in 2007, the annual Music City Hot Chicken Festival brings together the local community and visitors to celebrate the uniquely-Nashville dish, Hot Chicken.

HOT CHICKEN WILL BE CELEBRATED ON JULY 4, 2020 IN TAKE OUT FESTIVAL
Festival encourages take-out orders from restaurants and food trucks located across Nashville

The annual Music City Hot Chicken Festival presented by Piedmont Natural Gas announced today that Nashville will be celebrating our unique dish on our traditional July 4 date with a COVID-aware, deconstructed, take-out, curbside, “coop-side” event at Hot Chicken establishments across the Nashville area.

“Just as the 4th of July will always be the 4th of July and can’t be rescheduled, so goes the day that Nashvillians have traditionally come together to eat Hot Chicken and celebrate each other,” says former Mayor and Festival founder Bill Purcell. With that spirit in mind, the Hot Chicken Festival Committee has been working diligently to bring an event that was safe, COVID-aware, and supportive of Nashville’s hot chicken proprietors and festival-beneficiary Friends of Shelby Parks and Bottoms this year.

Hot Chicken-lovers and Hot Chicken-lovers-to-be are encouraged to order in advance and take out their favorite dish on Saturday, July 4. On that day, the Festival will offer entertainment and socially distanced comradery while patrons pick up orders at locations around Nashville. Participating restaurants announcing they will be open until at least 4 p.m. on July 4 include Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish, 400 Degrees, Party Fowl and Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, and the list is expected to grow.

“We are bringing this take-out, curbside, coop-side event because our beloved Hot Chicken dish still compels us to stop and celebrate its important, historic, and also legendary history not only for Nashville, but for our country,” said Purcell.

The Festival is also seeking contestants for its 2020 Amateur Contest that will take place on Thursday, June 25 and air on Channel 5’s Talk of the Town before the event, please submit your application HERE.

As with any other activity and especially during this pandemic all are encouraged to stay home if sick, wear a mask, wash your hands often, and avoid close contact with people who are sick.

The event benefits the Friends of Shelby Parks and Bottoms, but it has the added benefit of supporting Hot Chicken establishments that have been an important part of building entrepreneurship in our city, as well as our uniquely Nashville pride, unity and heritage.

Festival sponsors include Piedmont Natural Gas, Frost Brown Todd LLC, Nashville Electric Service, Yazoo Brewing Company, Anderson Benson Insurance, H. G. Hill Realty Company, Endeavor Business Media/Firehouse magazine and Metro Nashville Airport Authority.

Source: Music City Hot Chicken Festival