It's the restaurant that brought Nashville Hot Chicken to Tampa Bay and King of the Coop is quickly expanding.
"Nashville hot chicken. It's fried chicken and then you hit it with seasoned oil. And then you add extra seasoning for the spice, explains owner, Joe Dodd. "There's a cult following behind it where I like to see people push themselves like 'how hot can I really go' and it's it's funny to see reactions."
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The original Seminole Heights location draws people from all over Tampa Bay. It quickly led to Dodd expanding in other parts of the Bay.
Dodd first tried Nashville Hot Chicken in Raleigh and ever since then has been tweaking the recipe to find that perfect mix.
"It was a whole year and a half process of tweaking and playing, tweaking and playing, and to this day, we still do it. We still tweak every single day just trying to figure out different ways to make it better," says Dodd.
And as Dodd says moving to Westchase is just a no-brainer.
"There's so many opportunities over here. Westchase is a great community. When I first moved to Tampa, like right down the street actually, it's not Westchase. It was Town n' Country but everything we did was in Westchase. We have a huge following in Westchase that they go to Seminole Heights already. So for us, it was a no-brainer. And with this new plaza that they built in the Sprouts Plaza having Jeremiah's Ice next door, I think," explains Dodd.
King of the Coop is in three areas right now: Wesley Chapel, SoHo and Seminole Heights. Soon, they'll expand to St. Pete, Ybor City, Riverview and a food truck location in Bradenton.
"I don't know how the heck we're doing it. It's cool, though. It is. It's really cool. It's a lot of sleepless nights. But I love it," explains Dodd.
And it's evident every time he talks about the Coop.
He hopes the Westchase location will be open in the next few months.
