Jose Malagon dips fried chicken into oil and will then coat it with a spice mix at Nash & Proper in Sacramento .
walk-ups . In the future , he ’ d like to use the kitchen to test new concepts .
A ghost kitchen “ gets your creative juices flowing ,” Rhodes says . “ For instance , I have Nash & Proper , and inside of that , I could come up with Johnny ’ s Chicken Parmesan at the same time . But if Johnny ’ s Chicken Parmesan doesn ’ t work out , I can just shut it down and be like , ‘ I ’ m Ricky ’ s Hot Dogs now .’ It ’ s just one of those things that adds more revenue , but you don ’ t have to really go out of your way to find a brick-andmortar or buy another food truck .”
As for why so many of Sacramento ’ s ghost kitchens serve hot chicken , Rhodes takes some of the credit . When the Nash & Proper food truck hit the streets in 2018 , it was the first hot chicken-focused business in Sacramento ( though a handful of local restaurants , including South and LowBrau , had versions on their menus ). Rhodes ’ recipe put a California twist on the Nashville dish — a Korean-style double fry on the chicken , habanero powder in the spice mix and jalapeños in the slaw — and attracted long lines wherever he parked .
The following year , Nash & Proper won the top prize in the 2019 Downtown Sacramento Partnership ’ s Calling All Dreamers Contest , which included help securing a
restaurant space downtown . Sacramento restaurateurs “ were seeing fried chicken popping up , and people know the popularity at Nash & Proper ,” Rhodes says .
A saturated market ?
It ’ s no coincidence that nearly every hot chicken offering is a sandwich on a brioche bun with a thick layer of coleslaw , like The Sammich , Nash & Proper ’ s oft- Instagrammed version . Rhodes can ’ t claim to be the inventor of these sandwiches — Howlin ’ Ray ’ s in Los Angeles opened its food truck with a similar one in 2015 — but he was the first to market them successfully in Sacramento , and he ’ s caught a few places copying him red-handed . One of the new Sacramento spots ( which he won ’ t name ) had a picture on its website lifted from Nash & Proper ’ s Instagram until Rhodes asked the owner to take it down .
The owners of Sacramento ’ s other brick-and-mortar hot chicken spot , World Famous Hotboys , beat Nash & Proper ’ s downtown opening by a month . They launched their Midtown location in August 2020 , less than a year after they opened their first one in Oakland in December 2019 .
Hotboys has a wider menu than Nash & Proper , with Southern-style sides such as stewed greens and macaroni and cheese , and an aesthetic inspired by early-2000s hip-hop culture : blue neon flames on the windows , chicken-print bucket hats in the online merchandise shop and a graffiti-style mural by coowner Berk Gibbs outside . But for all their personal touches , the owners are aware that they ’ re part of a saturated market .
“ The saturation of hot chicken is not exclusive to California ,” says co-owner Victor Ghaben . “ I personally get requests to franchise my concept weekly from people in state , out of state and out of country . While we don ’ t have plans to franchise , it just shows you how popular it is right now .”
Rhodes can say he saw the wave coming . “ There ’ s going to be a hundred hot chicken places out there ,” he remembers telling his co-owner , Jake Bombard , soon before they started Nash & Proper in 2018 . “ But if we can say we were the first to market in Sacramento , then nobody can ever take that away from us , ever .”
Jennifer Fergesen is assistant editor of Comstock ’ s . Online at jcfrgsn . journoportfolio . com and on Twitter @ jenniferferges1 .
February 2021 | comstocksmag . com 33