Nashville, TN --- 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.
What: 2020 Music City Hot Chicken Festival, in a deconstructed style
Who: Nashville’s Hot Chicken establishments, amateur contestants, and Hot Chicken lovers
When: Saturday, July 4, 2020 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Where: Hot Chicken establishments and food trucks 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, this year, 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.
Hot Chicken-lovers and Hot Chicken-lovers-to-be are encouraged to place orders 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 Hot Chicken establishments and the links for online orders will be available and updated at the Music City Hot Chicken website www.hot-chicken.com.
"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.
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.
Especially for this year’s deconstructed Festival, Yazoo Brewing will be releasing a special limited batch of "Nashville Hot Chicken Coalition Ale," from a recipe that has proven from years of in-house experimentation to be the perfect complement to the burn of the best Nashville Hot Chicken. The beer call be purchased at Hot Chicken establishments on July 4 and is a light wheat ale, brewed with sea salt and coriander and fermented with a special strain and a tart, quenching finish, according to Yazoo’s owner Linus Hall.
As with any other activity and especially during this pandemic all are encouraged to stay home if sick or at risk, wear a mask, wash your hands often, and avoid close contact with people who are sick.
More information can be found at www.hot-chicken.com. The website will be updated as more details and participants are confirmed, so please check back often.
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 Business Incubation Center, Nashville Electric Service, Yazoo Brewing Company, Anderson Benson Insurance, H. G. Hill Realty Company, Endeavor Business Media/Firehouse magazine and Metro Nashville Airport Authority.
For more information visit www.hot-chicken.com and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MusicCityHotChickenFestival.
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