Crystal Wise
Fort Worth’s introduction to Nashville hot chicken has not necessarily been a proper one. You’ve seen it on menus here and there, in both full-service restaurants and fast-food joints, usually in the form of a fried-chicken sandwich or spicy tenders.
Which kinda makes William Terrell chuckle.
“That’s not really the full Nashville hot chicken experience,” he says. “A lot of places just sprinkle on spicy seasoning, or they just serve a hot sandwich. That’s not what it’s like in Nashville.”
Terrell would know. A Nashville native, Terrell grew up in a family of foodies. It was his cousin’s grandmother who developed the original recipe, a recipe that goes back decades.
“Hot chicken is new to a lot of people, but it’s been popular in Nashville for years and years,” he says. “It was a local tradition that just sort of took off, and now everybody likes it or wants to try it.”
Crystal Wise
Helen’s dips each chicken wing and thigh into a special hot oil.
Helen’s is one of the reasons why. The Nashville location is one of several restaurants that opened in the wake of the dish’s popularity. James Beard Award-winning Prince’s Hot Chicken was among the first restaurants in Nashville to specialize in hot chicken, some 70 years ago, paving the way for more recent contenders like the monstrously popular Hattie B’s.
Terrell’s cousin, Jeremy Mallard, took his grandmother’s recipes to the streets, literally, opening a food trailer on the sides of local roads. “He said, ‘I have an idea,’ and she said, ‘I have a recipe,’” Terrell says. Named after Mallard’s grandmother, the trailer proved to be a hit and brick-and-mortars soon followed.
Mallard talked Terrell, who was living in the Dallas area at the time, into giving up his day job as a pest control specialist to test the waters for a hot chicken spot in North Texas. “I drove down there, got the original trailer they used to use, and did what they did, started out with nothing but a good recipe,” Terrell says.
Crystal Wise
Nashville native William Terrell uses family recipes to create his fiery fowl.
“I can’t give you the recipe, but I can tell you we dip the chicken in an oil-based sauce that, ultimately, keeps the chicken dry. We don’t just pour hot sauce on the chicken or put a bunch of hot seasoning on it. What we do permeates the chicken. It keeps the skin crispy and crunchy.”
With business partner Floyd Reed, he soon opened the first North Texas location of Helen’s, in Lewisville. The Fort Worth store, opened by Terrell and Reed in September, is the eighth location of the family’s mini empire of restaurants.
Hot chicken at the Fort Worth location comes in the form of wings, tenders, and leg quarters, prepared in the heat level of your choice: mild, hot, and Hella Hot. “Mild is comparable to Louisiana Hot Sauce. Hot is comparable to Tabasco sauce,” Terrell says. “Hella Hot is ghost-pepper hot, definitely not for the faint of heart.”
Crystal Wise
Helen’s also serves fried shrimp and catfish, prepared hot or not.
The restaurant also offers lobster tails, shrimp, catfish, and whiting fish, all given the same treatment as the chicken. Sides include baked beans, fried okra, french fries, and freshly made salads. For dessert, there’s housemade strawberry cake.
There’s chicken and waffles, too, and of course, there’s a hot chicken sandwich.
“Ours comes with coleslaw on the sandwich, and we use sweet Hawaiian buns,” Terrell says. Like the other chicken dishes, you can order the sandwich mild, hot, or Hella Hot. “If you order it Hella Hot, the buns and slaw will help temper the heat. Believe me, you’ll be glad it comes with slaw on sweet buns.”
2812 Horne St., helenshotchickentx.com
