Mico's Hot Chicken, the Nashville-style sandwich shop that helped ignite Houston's hot chicken craze, is closed until further notice at its 2400 N. Shepherd Drive location in the Heights, and its founders say the restaurant will shut down for good unless someone steps in to run it. Kimico and Chris Frydenlund, who now live 5,100 miles away in Copenhagen, Denmark, are publicly seeking a buyer or operating partner willing to take over day-to-day management.
The couple laid out their terms in a public post on August 1, saying they are open to selling Mico's outright or handing majority ownership to the right operator while keeping a minority stake, according to Mico's Hot Chicken's Facebook page. As reported by Chron.com, Kimico Frydenlund said the business once provided real income for the family but in recent years has required them to personally bankroll it just to keep the doors open. The Frydenlunds are looking for an experienced restaurant operator, an established restaurant group, or an entrepreneur capable of running and growing the brand.
From Nurse's Nashville Trip to Heights Staple
Kimico Frydenlund was working as a registered nurse in Houston when a 2019 trip to Nashville changed her career path. A visit to the historic Prince's Hot Chicken, widely credited as the originator of the style, inspired her to bring the concept home, per the Houston Chronicle's earlier reporting relayed through Chron.com's account. Mico's debuted as a food truck in June 2019 before opening its first storefront at 1603 N. Durham Drive in 2020, then relocating to its current Shepherd Drive address in January 2025.
The restaurant's early hot chicken sandwich earned statewide recognition in February 2021, when Texas Monthly featured it among the best new restaurant takeout dishes in Texas, according to CultureMap Houston. Mico's also became a recurring name during Houston's annual Black Restaurant Week, which the Houston Chronicle notes showcases more than 100 Black-owned culinary businesses across the metro area. At one point, the Frydenlunds envisioned Mico's as a national brand and had planned a second location in the former Tarka Kitchen space at 10550 Westheimer Road in Westchase, per Chron.com — a plan that was ultimately scuttled.
Roadwork and Remote Ownership Take a Toll
Sales at Mico's dropped sharply over the last couple of years, and the restaurant has struggled with management turnover and difficulty finding suitable employees, Chron.com reports. Ongoing roadwork near the Shepherd Drive location caused access problems and damaged pipes, compounding the strain, according to the same account. That construction is tied to the Shepherd-Durham Complete Streets project, a redesign exceeding $100 million that converts four-lane roads into three-lane corridors with improved drainage and bike lanes, according to the Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority. Utility relocation delays for electricity and gas lines extended the corridor's construction schedule by up to 23 months, the authority's documents show.
The commercial property housing Mico's has also changed hands recently: the four-tenant strip center at 2400 N. Shepherd Drive was sold in July to publicly traded REIT Curbline Properties by longtime owner 24th Street Market LLC, according to Bisnow. Meanwhile, competition in the Heights hot chicken market has intensified since Mico's arrival in 2019, with national and regional chains including Dave's, Urban Bird, Houston TX Hot Chicken, and Nashville-based Hattie B's all entering the neighborhood, according to Patch.
Running a Restaurant From Across the Atlantic
Kimico and Chris Frydenlund relocated their family of four children to Copenhagen in 2023, a move Kimico has said was about finding a better place to raise a family. She later launched a small cookie bakery in Denmark in late 2025 while still trying to manage Mico's remotely, according to The International Denmark. The couple's own origin story adds an unusual footnote to the saga: Chron.com reports they met on Christian Mingle, dated over Skype for a year, and married before ever living in the same country.
Kimico has entertained offers for the business, and the couple says they hope someone buys Mico's outright or enters a partnership to keep it alive, per Chron.com's reporting. Without a sale or partnership, they say Mico's Hot Chicken will permanently close. The brand's original Durham Drive storefront has already moved on to new ownership — Japanese sandwich concept Sandoitchi took over that space in January, building a 1,200-square-foot restaurant with a 2,000-square-foot patio, as Hoodline previously reported, a sign of how quickly the Heights food scene has moved on even as Mico's fights to hang on at its newer address.
