Dave's Hot Chicken? More Like Dave's Hot Garbage.

I’m batting a thousand on chicken places here.

After my beloved Chick-fil-A gave me food poisoning in April, I was in search of a new chicken place.

A few of my coworkers recommended Dave’s Hot Chicken. I’d heard of it before, since a couple of YouTubers I follow (shout-out to Sambucha) have eaten there in videos. From what I’d seen, it looked pretty good.

Now, a couple of years ago, I got diagnosed with GERD, which is basically acid reflux. Certain things trigger it more than others. I can’t have acidic things like oranges or tomato sauce, and I’m not supposed to have spicy food anymore either. I don’t follow the recommended GERD diet too closely, because if I did I’d just be eating chicken, vegetables, and plain white rice every day. Will I end up with esophageal cancer one day? Maybe. But life’s too short to spend it eating bland ass food all the time.

So I told my acid reflux to go fuck itself and drove to nearby Cherry Hill to get me some Dave’s Hot Chicken.

I got there around 11:40, and it wasn’t really packed yet, but there were already people waiting. The lunch rush was getting ready to hit, and I wanted to get my food before then.

I ordered the #1, which is two tenders and a side of fries. I got one tender hot, and the other medium.

I put my order in at exactly 11:44. I didn’t get it until 12:06. It took over 20 minutes to get my food. I could see if it was a huge order, but it was literally two tenders and some fries. I know that there were people in front of me, but holy shit, it shouldn’t take over 20 minutes to get fried food. I had a view of the kitchen and by all appearances the staff were working, so I don’t know if I can blame them for this one. Did they have to kill and pluck the fucking chicken first? Is there only one deep fryer in the whole building?

It took way too long to get my food. I can only imagine how long it took for the people who came in after 12. They’re probably still there waiting for their shit.

After a gazillion years, I finally got my food:

Dave’s Hot Chicken #1 combo with two chicken tenders, one Hot and one Medium, served on white bread with crinkle-cut fries and pickle slices. — The Dave’s Hot Chicken #1: two tenders, one Hot and one Medium, with fries, white bread, and pickles.

It looked good, so that was a plus.

As anyone who’s ever taken a chick home from the bar after last call knows, appearances can be deceiving. It looked good, but the taste left a lot to be desired.

The hot was way hotter than I expected. Apparently I’ve become a little bitch since cutting back on the spicy food. My eyes were tearing up like my girlfriend just told me she’s pregnant, snot was running down my nose. It was a fucking mess.

The medium wasn’t as strong, and if I ever went back I’d probably just order two of those.

Before you jump on my dick and start calling me out, my issue isn’t with the heat. I’m not a retard, I know I probably shouldn’t have ordered hot if I wasn’t sure that I could handle it. I fucked around and I found out. That one was on me.

My issue was that neither piece of chicken had any actual flavor beyond the heat.

Underneath the spiciness, the chicken was pretty bland. I ended up having to dip it into the Dave’s Sauce (which is basically just sweetened chipotle sauce) just to give it some flavor. I hate when places do this. They brag about how hot their food or their sauce is, but that’s all it is. They use the spiciness to mask the lack of flavor. Dave’s Hot Chicken was hot, but beyond that I might as well have been eating wet cardboard. At least put some salt and pepper on your chicken.

But hey, at least it didn’t give me food poisoning like Chick-fil-A, so that’s a plus. I guess.

The fries were okay. It’s pretty hard to fuck fries up. I’m not a fan of crinkle cut, but that’s just, like, my opinion, man. They were seasoned with some kind of knockoff version of Old Bay seasoning.

All in all, my experience at Dave’s Hot Chicken kind of sucked, and I probably won’t be going back. There’s just so many better hot chicken places in the Philadelphia area. Seriously, they’re popping up literally everywhere now. My favorite by far is Asad’s. Unlike Dave’s, Asad’s actually has flavor under the heat.

Dave’s Hot Chicken sucks. But I guess that’s to be expected when your main investor is Drake. Not the cool Drake either, the lame Drake who makes shitty music. Stick to making shitty music for women, and let the pros handle the chicken.

Editor’s note: This was originally published to Rantlister on July 14, 2026.

Angry_Jerk

Adam “The Angry Jerk” Baker is the CEO of The AJnet Organization and Editor-in-Chief of AJnet Magazine. A grizzled internet veteran of over 20 years, he writes about politics, culture, and whatever else manages to annoy him that day.

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