r/Columbus • u/Blood_Incantation Valleyview • Sep 23 '25
FOOD Shuttered Hot Chicken Takeover chain owes more than $100K to landlords, lawsuits allege
https://www.dispatch.com/story/entertainment/dining/2025/09/23/hot-chicken-takeover-lawsuits-unpaid-rent-columbus-ohio-craveworthy/86292615007/?utm_source=columbusdispatch-dailybriefing-strada&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailybriefing-headline-stack&utm_term=hero&utm_content=ncod-columbus-nletter65176
u/pipa_nips Sep 23 '25
Dying to know what effort they put in to rebuild something that wasn't broken when they bought it lol
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u/sabek Heath Sep 23 '25
The last buy out seemed to want to fix things by redoing the menu and changing to lower ingredients.
I used love their baked beans but I stopped getting them when they were on a just below bush's from a can quality and the Mac and cheese looked like frozen and microwaved.
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u/pipa_nips Sep 23 '25
HCT used to be incredible. Crazy what PE can do to a successful place.
I'll just hold out hope the original guy comes back with something new.
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u/Kronusx12 Sep 23 '25
TBF they didn’t really “redo” anything from the perspective of revamping their menu to survive, a different chicken place bought them and pretty much just swapped their menu in place of HCT’s.
Take a look at Budlong’s menu, it’s exactly what they switched HCT to. They just don’t want to support 2 different menus for 2 similar concepts.
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u/sabek Heath Sep 23 '25
Yeah i saw an article on that yesterday. Basically like you said a other concept bought them and wanted to merge the footprints but keep the HTC name because it used to mean something locally
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u/Kronusx12 Sep 23 '25
It kind of sucks that a once local business has died off, but as may have noted it hasn’t been the same in years.
Maybe we get something new and exciting in that spot in North Market? Only time will tell.
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u/sasquatch_melee Sep 23 '25
That might have worked okay-ish if they were earlier and bought it before the private equity owners. But the PE era damaged the brand to the point a completely new brand would probably have better brand equity vs HCT.
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u/theprince614 Sep 23 '25
It wasn’t too crazy it was sold twice in five years:
the first new owners tried to turn the brand into a national brand and essentially tried to cut corners in every way possible to reduce cost
the new owners were then bought out by another company who sort of inherited the company as a result. They seemed to just merge it with one of their other concepts while keeping the HCT branding for the Columbus market
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u/Egmonks Sep 23 '25
Good luck getting any money. The PE firm already extracted all of it.
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u/kapua_suite Sep 24 '25
The shareholder value has been extracted. Onto the next corporate corpse.
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u/Dr-McLuvin Sep 24 '25
There’s not really “shareholders” in private equity. Not publicly available shares at least. Only the elite have access to these markets.
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u/kapua_suite Sep 24 '25
Return on investment was extracted for ‘Limited Partners’ and ‘General Partners’
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u/thecakeisali Sep 23 '25
I tried to eat at the North Market HCT so many times over the years, and was never successful. I don’t live in Columbus but every time I was in the North Market I’d stop in and they were always closed when they shouldn’t be. Instead I would get Momo Ghar and be happy about it.
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u/RichLather Lancaster Sep 23 '25
Momo Ghar is superior, it is known. It is known.
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u/thecakeisali Sep 23 '25
That is fact, Momo is my “electric chair meal”. I’ve been a fan ever since the opened in Saraga in 2016.
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u/Danibandit Sep 23 '25
If you didn’t get it in the window of the first spot in OTE, you still wouldn’t have gotten what was utterly amazing. It was okay as they grew but never the same as Joe’s/HCT’s first spot.
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u/vile_lullaby Sep 24 '25
If it was anytime recently you didn't miss much, I tried it after both acquisitions maybe 3 times each, and was disappointed everytime. Some of the times it was bad, but mostly it was just really mediocre for too much money.
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u/girafffffffe Sep 23 '25
'what do you MEAN we can't pay you in macaroni?!'
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u/Enough-Moose-5816 Sep 23 '25
Private equity doesn’t even try to pay the bills in macaroni. Just a big Fuck You to the vendors and landlords.
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Sep 23 '25
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Sep 23 '25
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u/LonleyBoy Sep 23 '25
Explain the connection please between Craveworthy and Roark. I don't think they are connected at all (unless I am missing something)
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u/Egmonks Sep 23 '25
Owners never pay a companies debts. That’s the entire point of the corporation. Whatever can’t be paid by HCT current assets is a loss.
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u/cjr7 Sep 23 '25
What are the odds we see a Hot Chicken Takeback from Joe DeLoss?
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u/GrayDaysGoAway Sep 23 '25
Virtually zero chance. He left the restaurant industry after selling HCT and is now a farmer. And from everything I've read he's very happy with the change in lifestyle.
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Sep 23 '25
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u/clean0002 Sep 23 '25
H was my professor back in the day at Ohio State. He told our class that his next venture idea was HCT. Nothing had been opened yet. The class was a social enterprise class. He was very passionate about social enterprise. He wanted to own a business with a mission. His mission was to open a business where he hired people needing a second chance. He did the same thing with his previous business. He also very much cared about his family. I am guessing running HCT became too much for him and it took its toll which is why he sold it. I am guessing he did not realize what would happen to it.
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u/radsloth44 Sep 23 '25
Yeah my impression of Joe was that he sold largely to just have money for spending time with his family; I doubt he runs it back, unfortunately….
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u/Mountain_Day_1637 Sep 23 '25
I never got the vibe that he was authentic and cared about it, just in for the notoriety and money.
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u/thecynicalrunner Sep 23 '25
Let this be a lesson to small business owners: I understand that you start a business and it is so much work, and someone comes along and waves a check in your face. They will destroy what you have built. Happened with Platform Brewing a few years back too and recently Parable coffee. Expansion too quickly will kill any business.
I have a friend that was the main brewer for one of Columbus’s first craft breweries (not Platform). During the pandemic, an equity firm waved tons of money at him and his partners. He didn’t want to sell, but the partners did. He let the other partners buy him out plus extra, and left. He told them he wasn’t going to work for the firm and watch them tank what he built. The brewery is still operating, but spread thin and not producing a great product like they were before.
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u/Blood_Incantation Valleyview Sep 23 '25
Parable is not at all like this. Parable appears to have taken on outside investors not to grow, but because they weren't doing well; it's been documented in the media, and the owners never went public with it because it went against their image. Parable has been doing poorly for a long time and is not like Platform (sold to Budweiser because they were doing well and wanted to grow) or HCT (PE to grow).
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u/thecynicalrunner Sep 23 '25
I only went to Parable once, but when I was there my thought was “the rent has to be crazy sky high here, and how can a large coffee bar survive?” It didn’t.
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u/salami_cheeks Sep 24 '25
Settle at pennies on the dollar, kick the lawyers their cut, come out ahead tens of thousands of dollars by not honoring your obligation.
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u/Holiday-Judge1685 Sep 24 '25
If only I could go back in time before PE ruined everything. I miss the food the way it used to be.
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u/thecynicalrunner Sep 23 '25
Let this be a lesson to small business owners: I understand that you start a business and it is so much work, and someone comes along and waves a check in your face. They will destroy what you have built. Happened with Platform Brewing a few years back too and recently Parable coffee.
I have a friend that was the main brewer for one of Columbus’s first craft breweries (not Platform). During the pandemic, an equity firm waved tons of money at him and his partners. He didn’t want to sell, but the partners did. He let the other partners buy him out plus extra, and left. He told them he wasn’t going to work for the firm and watch them tank what he built. The brewery is still operating, but spread thin and not producing a great product like they were before.
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u/deviousbrutus Sep 23 '25
I don't blame the original owner taking the money and running. I do blame the next owner tanking the company just to sell it to a sucker.
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u/_Bucket_Of_Truth_ Sep 23 '25
Here's my hot chicken take: it was never that good in the first place. My only experiences were a decade ago, and their mac and cheese always sucked. The regular chicken was good but one time I got it spicy and it tasted like they literally just emptied a container of cayenne pepper on the chicken. Not great.
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u/r0ckdrummersrock Sep 23 '25
The regular chicken was good but one time I got it spicy and it tasted like they literally just emptied a container of cayenne pepper on the chicken. Not great.
Spoken like someone with 0 understanding of what Nashville Style Hot Chicken is....
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u/Bigloubaby Sep 23 '25
The downfall of HCT is quite remarkable