How The Red Chickz brought true Nashville soul to the West Coast

In this episode of the Restaurant Operator Podcast, host Mandy Detwiler, editor of Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb, chats with Shawn Lalehzarian, co-founder of The Red Chickz, a West Coast Nashville hot chicken brand that opened its first unit in Los Angeles in 2018.

Lalehzarian began his restaurant career as a dishwasher in a local restaurant in San Diego in 1998. He eventually moved on to be an assistant manager and moved upward into a senior ops position with HMS Host, opening more than 50 restaurants in airports around the nation and in Canada.

He found two partners in 2014 and eventually opened The Red Chickz in 2018.

"When we decided to get into a hot chicken concept, we flew out to Nashville and asked basically everyone from the Uber driver to the bellman at the hotel if they knew anyone in their family that knows how to make Nashville hot chicken," Lalehzarian said. "And some of those folks invited us to their homes and showed us the homestyle of Nashville hot. So what we serve in our restaurant today is exactly what we brought back from Nashville."

What sets The Red Chickz apart from other chicken concepts? Lalehzarian said there are "bold" differentiators.

"Our product is the crunchiest friend chicken in the hot chicken market, and frankly in the fried chicken market," he said. "From the start we have had a pretty innovative menu in the segment, and we are trying to keep it that way."

That includes serving products like shrimp and chicken and waffles, salads, loaded veggie plates and French toast.