Mid-Market chicken sandwich spot Hotbird moving to Oakland, while World Famous Hotboys opens new Walnut Creek store

Mid-Market chicken sandwich spot Hotbird moving to Oakland, while World Famous Hotboys opens new Walnut Creek storePhoto: Rachel. via Yelp
Joe Kukura
Published on March 22, 2022

It’s difficult to pinpoint when exactly the Nashville-style hot chicken sandwich craze came to the Bay Area, though it's been kind of a national food-world trend, and we can't discount the August 2019 introduction of the Popeye’s chicken sandwich. That watershed moment was a rising tide that lifted all food trucks (that served chicken sandwiches). And possibly the most popular SF chicken sandwich food truck Hotbird announced its new brick-and-mortar home the following month.

But for Hotbird, the new brick-and-mortar home has been beset by larger delays. That home, the Twitter building food hall known as The Market, has been besieged by COVID slowdowns and construction delays in expansions, such as the one Hotbitd was planning to occupy. 

So Hotbird is flying the coop, and heading to Oakland‘s Uptown District.

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Hotbird_SF (@hotbird_sf)

 

“Our plans for Twitter have come to an end because of the pandemic, but we’ve found an awesome location in Oakland to continue our journey!,” according to the Hotbird website. “We’re excited to have a new and exciting menu, craft beers, an actual dining room to sit in, and more!”

The new location will be at 1951 Telegraph Avenue, one block from the 19th Street BART station, and according to Hotbird, will be open “next month.”

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by World Famous HOTBOYS (@worldfamoushotboys)

 

Meanwhile, the chicken is also flying with World Famous Hot Boys, another Nashville fried chicken joint that graduated from pop-up to brick-and-mortar status in Uptown Oakland. The Chronicle reports that they’ve just opened a third location, this one in Walnut Creek. (Their second location is in Sacramento, and opened in 2020.)

“The Walnut Creek location is the group’s biggest location yet, with 42 seats inside and 30 seats on a sunny patio,” the Chron reports. “While the initial menu looks the same as the one served in Oakland, it’ll slowly expand thanks to a bigger kitchen with more equipment.”

Oddly, while every competitor in the enormously popular Nashville fried chicken sandwich sector is madly trying to distinguish themselves from one another, they all choose confoundingly similar names. Hotbird is now competing with Matt Horn's Kowbird, The Bird, Flybird, Chickenbox, and more. It seems counterintuitive that they all keep taking similar names, but this has done nothing to slow the growth of the spicy fried chicken sandwich sensation.