After a long search for a bricks-and-mortar site, Nashville-style hot chicken favourite Cheekies will open a permanent store on Pirie Street.

Hot chicken is more than just a chook coated in flour, dunked into a deep fryer and smothered in hot sauce and cayenne.

That’s what Cheekies Hot Chicken co-owner Rashaad Ćhenia will tell you, because it’s much more than the cooking.

It’s about the way you crunch into the crispy coating and the juicy flesh, and the people you choose to share it with.

“For us it’s about giving people authentic hot chicken and letting them experience it and creating that sense of community,” says Rashaad, who co-owns the business with his partner, Rachael Sharples.

For almost two years, Cheekies Hot Chicken has called a mini bodega inside Rundle Street’s upstairs bar BRKLYN home, serving up Nashville-style fried chicken, usually slapped between two buns with sides of chunky fries.

Now Cheekies is getting a permanent home along Pirie Street. The new spot is sandwiched between Chicken & Pig and Sushi Sushi.

Rashaad says they hope to be open for lunches and dinners by late March.

“We were looking for a lot of bigger spots down at Port Adelaide and out in the western suburbs, but this just appealed to me because of the crazy foot traffic and fun vibe,” Rashaad, also co-owner of BRKLYN, says.

“You’ve got Osteria Oggi and Soi 38 and things like that, then you’ve got Gaja by Sashi and Chicken & Pig.

“It’s really developed into a foodie precinct, and for us it was a big step up to market to that corporate daytime crowd and also bring some more fun to that strip.”

The new restaurant will seat up to 50 diners, and there are plans for a 16-seater bench along Pirie Street for communal dining.

There will be a bar with a limited booze menu, built around wines and beers that pair well with fried chicken.

Stepney design studio Faculty is behind the look of the new site, which Rashaad says will be “small, intimate and a bit gritty”.

“It will be a little bit cleaner to fit in a little bit better to the setting, and we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously,” he says.

A Cheekies spread from January 2020. This picture: Supplied

The menu will include a heftier hot chicken sando, using brined free-range chicken thigh, and a smaller one for lunch crowds. They will also have tenders, wings and a variety of sides.

The spot at BRKLYN will stay open, but only serving tenders and hot chicken sandos.

Southern fried chicken is something of a special subject for Rashaad. He and Rachael ate their way through the best — and worst — fried chicken outlets across Nashville, Tennessee and Los Angeles before opening Cheekies.

“We spent three months in the US eating a whole lot of chicken,” he says.

“One of the biggest is LA’s Howlin’ Ray’s in Chinatown. It’s a small, random spot, like a little hole in the wall that has seating for 10 people and a queue for three hours.

“We also went to the source of hot chicken in Nashville, Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, and we also went to Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, but Howlin’ Ray’s was sort of our inspiration.

“Hot chicken is such a phenomenon there, but Australia just hasn’t caught onto it yet.”

Cheekie’s Hot Chicken’s Pirie Street frontage is scheduled to open by the end of March.

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