Joella's Hot Chicken
Regional fast food chicken restaurant chain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joella's Hot Chicken is a fast food chain founded in Louisville, Kentucky.
| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fast food |
| Founded | 2015 in Louisville, Kentucky |
| Founder | Tony Palombino |
| Headquarters | , US |
Number of locations | 9 (2025)[1] |
Area served | Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio |
| Products | Nashville hot chicken |
| Parent | Schulte Restaurant Group |
| Website | joellas |
Description
The restaurant chain is known for serving Nashville hot chicken.[2] It serves chicken tenders, wings, and bone-in chicken,[3] including half and quarter-chickens,[4] chicken and waffles, and chicken burgers.[3] The chain also serves a vegan chicken alternative made with peas, carrots, potatoes, and beetroot.[4]
The chicken is prepared in a choice of seven spice levels. The lowest spice level is Southern fried chicken, which has no heat, while the highest spice level requires customers to sign a waiver before eating.[5] In 2025, the chain stopped serving whole wings and replaced them with drumettes and flats.[6]
It also serves various sides including french fries, macaroni and cheese, kale salad, coleslaw, banana pudding, potato salad,[7] and green beans.[3]
History
The first location was opened by Tony Palombino in Louisville, Kentucky in 2015. Palombino also founded Boombozz Taphouse in 1998.[8] He invested approximately $350,000 into opening the first location.[9] A second location was opened a few months later in January 2016 in Lexington.[10] By 2019, the chain subsequently opened locations in Florida, Ohio, Georgia, and Indiana.[11] It was purchased by Schulte Restaurant Group in 2018.[12][13]
Not all of the new locations did well and were quickly closed. In Indiana, Joella's opened a restaurant in Broad Ripple in October 2018[14] and closed in January 2025.[15] Joella's opened a restaurant in Bloomington in January 2019,[16] right next door to a Chick-fil-a,[17] only to close four years later in November 2023.[18]
In Florida, Joella's opened and quickly closed three restaurants. A location in Largo opened in September 2019[19] and closed in October 2024.[20] A location in Seminole opened in October 2019[21] and closed by the end of 2021.[22] A location in Melbourne opened in October 2019[23] and closed in June 2023.[22]
In the Atlanta metropolitan area in Georgia, Joella's opened four restaurants in 2019[4][24] only to have all four restaurants be closed by December 2023.[22][25][26] In Ohio, Joella's opened a restaurant in Cincinnati in June 2018[27] and closed in October 2021.[28]
These closed restaurants represent over half of the chain's locations to date and most of the closures are due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the restaurant industry, which coincided with their individual openings occurring just a few months prior to the start of the pandemic.
Legal
In 2020, the fast food chain Zaxby's filed a trademark infringement lawsuit alleging that Joella's logo was too similar to the Zaxby's logo.[29][30]