What is The Hot Chick?
The order counter at The Hot Chick looks like a vintage camper parked inside a bar. That sets the tone. The bar at 4363 N 75th St is part fried-chicken joint and part dive bar, with throwback music, old-school arcade cabinets, DJs and a misted patio. It opened in the summer of 2019, and within three months Phoenix New Times had named it Best New Nightspot in its Best of Phoenix awards.
The food is the reason it is in the restaurant section. The kitchen fries Nashville-style hot chicken, using birds raised without added hormones or antibiotics, and serves it as pieces, sandwiches on a brioche bun or “nugs,” with house-made maple butter biscuits, pimento mac and cheese and salads. A self-serve sauce bar lets each person set their own heat. Prices are bar prices, roughly $10 to $25 a person.
The rest is nostalgia. Donkey Kong, Frogger, Galaga and Mario sit alongside board games, under 30-plus TVs and a giant LED wall, and the playlist leans on the 1980s and ’90s. Over the years the calendar has filled with karaoke, themed costume nights and drag bingo, which won Best Drag Bingo in the 2024 Best of Phoenix.
It is not trying to be a club. There is no strict dress code, the crowd is a mix of locals and visitors, and the door is easygoing. On a corner of Old Town better known for big patios, it is the bar with the most personality per square foot.
Chicken first, games second
Eat while the kitchen is the main event. Weekday doors open at 3 p.m., weekends at 10 a.m., and the early hours are when The Hot Chick works as a chicken counter. Get a basket of hot chicken pieces for the table, a sandwich for anyone who wants a bun, the biscuits and the pimento mac. Hit the sauce bar more than once.
Then play. The arcade cabinets are the free floor show; Donkey Kong is the one with the line. Board games come out for slower afternoons, and the TVs and LED wall make the place a sports bar when there is a big game on.
Check the calendar before a night out. Drag bingo is the event with the award, but karaoke and themed nights with costume contests turn up too. On the busiest nights the bar runs until 2 a.m., DJs play a mix of Top 40, disco, hip-hop and rock, and the patio is where conversations happen. Large groups should call ahead.
Use the block. The Hot Chick sits next door to Boondocks Patio & Grill, whose big games patio and live bands make an obvious pairing, and a short walk from Pistoleros Parrilla if you want a sit-down dinner first. The clubs of the Entertainment District on Saddlebag Trail and Stetson Drive are a couple of blocks west. For a broader map of where to drink cheaply and casually, see our Scottsdale dive bars guide.
Hot chicken comes to the dive bar
Nashville hot chicken spent the 2010s going from a Tennessee specialty to a national craze, and by 2019 the Valley had its share of counters. The Hot Chick’s move was to put that craze into a bar, then build the bar around nostalgia: a camper for a kitchen, Donkey Kong for entertainment, and a soundtrack from the decade most of its customers were born in.
The timing mattered. Old Town’s nightlife in the late 2010s was split between big-budget clubs and day clubs north of Indian School and the older saloons and dive bars on the south side. There was little in between for people who wanted a cheap drink, decent food and something to do besides dance. Arcade bars were spreading across the country to fill that gap, and The Hot Chick brought the idea to 75th Street with fried chicken attached.
That made it a quick winner with critics, and it has stayed in the conversation since. It came through the pandemic years and the 2020s remaking of Old Town with its formula intact and a new identity layered on top: drag bingo, karaoke and costume nights that have made it one of the more inclusive rooms in Old Town’s nightlife.
The honest assessment: this is a dive bar with a good fryer, not a restaurant with a bar. If you want a quiet dinner, eat at 4 p.m. or go elsewhere. But for a basket of hot chicken, a round of Frogger and a drag queen calling bingo numbers, there is no other place in Old Town like it.