Road Trip: Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack is an Asheville Treasure
Rocky’s Chicken Shack in Asheville, N.C. Photos by Kevin Gibson
We were tired from driving all day (Tennessee highways are bull$%!*), we were hungry and it was close to our hotel, and all those things factored into our evening meal choice. But here’s the truth: Having dinner at Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack was a banger of a decision.
Rocky’s is one of those places that just seems built for fun, with a little indoor/outdoor dining patio on one side, and a colorful main dining area with fun signage and stickers covering the load-bearing posts that litter the space. It’s like a welcoming roadside attraction travelers might have found along Route 66 in the 1960s.
The mini-chain — there are also locations in Arden, N.C., and Greenville, S.C. — has a casual order-at-the-counter system, with menus posted near the order station. And the menu is filled with southern staples built around Nashville-style hot chicken. Starters include staples like fried green tomatoes and pimento cheese dip, with some reasonably-priced salad options available as well. Chicken comes in many forms, from classic whole pieces to crispy wings to tenders, and you can add on whatever you want a la carte.
For those craving a bit more healthful chicken options, there are grilled chicken meals and rotisserie chickens. Chicken pot pie and chicken and waffles are also on the list if you’re really feeling old school. Several different sandwiches adorn the menu, including a Cheerwine barbecue sandwich made with a regional favorite sauce. Sides range from fried okra to sweet potato casserole to coleslaw.
It’s tough to choose at Rocky’s, but I opted for the breaded Nashville-style tenders with sides of mashed potatoes and gravy and collard greens. Of course, when ordering hot chicken, one has to pick a heat level, and since I’d never eaten there before, I was flying blind. The range at Rocky’s is from plain — no spice at all, just chicken — to Extra Hot. The next to hottest level is dubbed Rocky’s Hot. I figured if they felt strongly enough about the spice profile to put the restaurant’s name on it, it was worth a shot. For her part, Cynthia decided to order a classic wedge salad.
In a few minutes, our food arrived, and I’ll say one thing for her salad, it was ample. Roughly a half a head of iceberg lettuce, dripping with thick blue cheese dressing and garnished with cherry tomatoes and plenty of bacon chunks. I didn’t steal a bite, but it looked delicious and Cynthia wasted no time in polishing it off following a long day of road travel.
My dinner consisted of three huge tenders served atop a single piece of white bread, a thick pickle chip perched on top of the pile. The potatoes were covered with a peppery, light brown country gravy, peel still in the delicious side. The greens, interestingly, had a slight hint of sweetness. Still, they were flavorful, piled high and seasoned with chunks of bacon.
But the chicken was the star of the show. There was easily enough white meat there for two meals, juicy and tender, bursting with flavor from the unique spice blend. The hot chicken spice was a dark reddish-brown color and textured almost like a rub, with a distinctive spicy flavor I couldn’t quite place. I almost felt there was a hint of Arbol Pepper, but it’s hard to imagine that particular choice. But the stuff definitely was spicy, and my heat-seeking palate relished it.
I didn’t even get close to finishing it all, and as I placed the remaining one and a half pieces of tender into a to-go box, Cynthia and I both noticed the bread underneath at the same time — it was coated with a layer of the dark spices.
“You should take a picture of it,” she said. So I did. And into the box it went. Before we left town, I had finished it off by turning the leftover chicken and bread into hotel room snacks. I think the chicken got even more spicy as the next couple of days progressed — no regrets. (It probably should be noted that Cynthia wasn’t a fan of the aromas the leftover chicken brought to our in-room mini-fridge. Maybe that’s what she gets for ordering salad at a hot chicken joint.)
