Spicing up the new year with Scoville Hot Chicken

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. - Anyone who’s ever spent some time in Nashville knows about hot chicken. Ultra-spicy fried chicken is a Music City staple — and a new eatery in Sandy Springs is joining a growing list of restaurants bringing the seasoned specialty here to metro Atlanta.

Scoville Hot Chicken just opened on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs last month and serves from a simple menu featuring a hot chicken sandwich, slaw, and fries. Owner Justin Lim (known for also owning Okiboru Tsukemen and Ramen) named the restaurant after the Scoville scale, which famously measures the heat of chili peppers — so, of course, there’s a heat scale from which customers can choose the spice level of their chicken sandwich.  

And that’s where the fun part comes in! The scale starts at Chili (very mild) and continues with Medium, Hot, and Extra Hot levels. But…you know it doesn’t end there. At the top of the scale, there’s the Reaper, which is so hot the restaurant’s team challenges customers to post a video of themselves eating it on social media, using the hashtag #ScovilleReaperChallenge. According to the restaurant’s menu, ordering your sandwich at the Reaper level is like "drinking molten lava" — undoubtedly both tantalizing and terrifying for customers!

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Along with the new Sandy Springs location at 4969 Roswell #220 Road, Lim is also opening a Scoville Hot Chicken in Athens this week at 311 E Broad Street; current hours in Sandy Springs are 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily.  More information on the locations and menu may be found by clicking here.

Of course, the Good Day Atlanta feature team has never been one to turn down a food challenge — even when the words "molten lava" are involved.  So, we spent the morning at Scoville Hot Chicken in Sandy Springs, burning our taste buds in a bid for bragging rights — click the video player to see it!

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