With over 200 locations nationally, Dave’s Hot Chicken celebrates their new Sicklerville location “soft” opening this Thursday October 24th. The official Grand Opening is set for Friday. 42Freeway broke the news of this location back in June.
The Cross Keys Road location is opening in the former PDQ Chicken restaurant building which sits in front of Carmax. The building’s size provides a full dine-in restaurant option.
This is the second location for Dave’s in South Jersey, with Cherry Hill opened in April of this year. Sicklerville (Winslow) will be the 7th location in the state.
Dave’s Hot Chicken specializes in the popular Nashville Hot style chicken tenders which are cooked fresh and served in your choice of seasoned spice level.
Dave’s also offer shakes, Cauliflower tenders and a variety of sides including fries, mac & cheese, kale slaw and more. (Dave’s menu can differ per location so we likely won’t know the full Sicklerville offering until the open)
Folks say that Dave’s Chicken Tenders are “Jumbo”… and I’ve had them maybe four times now (in two different states) and I have to agree they are very large tender!
And it seems they clearly have found their fanbase. I’ve been to the Cherry Hill location at least twice several months after their opening, and each time I visited I experienced a still crowded restaurant.
For Sicklerville, the Dave’s team has done a great job rebranding the building to Dave’s… which features a white base exterior paint and fun and colorful graphics throughout the building.
Unfortunately during my recent visit the sun was positioned in the very back of the building so that the front of the building was shadowed… and you know I pride myself on my photography! So I am not ecstatic over my images but I wanted to get this article online to let people know of the opening. I may stop back soon to refresh these images.
Inside, the fun and colorful graffiti style graphics continue, and Dave’s will likely incorporate some local aspects to the design. For example, in Cherry Hill there is a boxing chicken in a boxing ring… In reference to when Mohammed Ali used to live in Cherry Hill!
As of right now I have not been inside Dave’s Sicklerville to see what the design is… and when I stopped in very recently the restaurant was filled with their new staff who are actively involved in training.
With this building Dave’s inherits a drive-thru lane but I noticed the menu boards are completely blank, so it makes me think that they will not be operating a drive-thru.
Readers are probably wondering if there’s any grand opening day promos and as far as I can see none only are any listed for Sicklerville (and we’re just days away). It appears there were no special promos or giveaways for Cherry Hill either.
My apologies readers that there are some details that I don’t have at this time, but I felt it was important to get the news out regarding the opening.
Nashville Hot Chicken is HOT
Nashville Hot Chicken tenders and sandwiches are absolutely “hot” right now as customers seem to be willing to wait in long lines to get their hands on freshly made chicken tenders and sandwiches.
To support that demand a variety of competitors are rushing to claim their territories throughout all of the United States.
Back in August, less than a mile away on Cross Keys Road the Philadelphia based Asad’s Hot Chicken opened to a large crowd of customers.
Dave’s Nashville Hot Chicken
First started in 2017 in a makeshift parking lot kitchen in California, the rapidly growing quick-casual restaurant now has over 200 full restaurant locations with 100s more signed on to be developed.
If you’re unfamiliar with what Nashville Hot Chicken is… well at Dave’s Hot Chicken they are serving large pieces of chicken breasts which can be ordered as a tender or a slider sandwich.
The preparation is key to any recipe and at Dave’s they first marinate the chicken breasts in their own secret proprietary brine recipe. That marinating locks in flavors and juices into the chicken.
The chicken tenders are then breaded and deep fried.
After cooking, the signature spicy dry rub style seasoning is added to the fried chicken tenders, which really gives it that Dave’s special flavor… and adds the “hot” to the chicken.
Like most hot chicken restaurants, that spice level can be chosen by the customer, which at Dave’s Hot Chicken is 7 levels of heat starting with no spice at all and then moving through mild, medium, hot and going all the way up to Reaper!
Dave’s also has their own tangy sauce which can be used to dip the chicken tenders in. The sauce is also part of the slide sandwich preparation.
With growing competition, what sets the different brands apart is… well for example, at Dave’s every aspect of the above process is a proprietary recipe which gives their tenders it’s signature freshness, bite and taste.
The core menu of Dave’s is focused on simplicity, offering options of chicken tenders or the sliders.
But looking at the Cherry Hill menu online I see they have expanded things by offering Dave’s bites (smaller chicken nugget sized pieces) as well as a meatless “Dave’s NOT Chicken” which are made from Cauliflower!
Links and Location
Dave’s Hot Chicken – Sicklerville (Opens Thursday October 24th)610 Berlin – Cross Keys RdSicklerville, NJ 08081