Famous Hot Chicken Spot Hattie B’s Opens First Austin Restaurant Soon

A very popular hot chicken chain restaurant will be opening its first Austin location this month. Hattie B’s Hot Chicken will open in the South Lamar neighborhood at 2529 South Lamar Boulevard starting on Wednesday, February 28.

The Austin Hattie B’s will serve up its signature Nashville-style hot chicken in varying spice levels from the not-spicy southern to the very spicy Shut the Cluck Up!!!. It’s available as pieces, plates, sandwiches, tenders, with waffles, and mixed into fries. Then there are sides like pimento mac and cheese, bacon cheddar cheese grits, black-eyed pea salads, and pickles. Sweets include banana pudding, peach cobbler, and ice cream floats.

For drinks, there are cocktails like its version of the Ranch Water called Shack Water, which swaps tequila with gin and lime for grapefruit. Then there’s a bloody mary with dill and pickle flavors, a bourbon John Daly, and watermelon margaritas. It’ll have Texas and Nashville beers too.

The restaurant will include an indoor dining room, a patio, and an outdoor space lined with putting green and lawn games. There will be a bunch of parking spots, including some dedicated to takeout orders, plus an entrance for those pickups.

The restaurant is taking over what had been the legendary Maria’s Taco Xpress restaurant, which had closed at the end of 2020. Hattie B’s co-founder Nick Bishop, Jr. acknowledged the space’s predecessor in a press release: “We did our best to honor Maria and her legacy on South Lamar,” he says.

Co-founders and co-owners Bishop Jr. and his dad Nick Bishop, Sr. started Hattie B’s in Nashville in 2012. Since then, they’ve grown the business with locations in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Nevada. This isn’t the first Texas location though — that was in Dallas in 2022.

Maria’s Taco Xpress opened in 1997 by owner Maria Corbalan originally as a food truck. She opened the physical restaurant in 2006, and there had been stories about the business potentially shutting down since 2017. That finally happened in September 2020.

Hattie B’s Austin hours will be from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.

There’s an Austin-grown hot chicken chain too, Tumble 22, which doesn’t have any locations in South Austin currently.