Dave’s Hot Chicken (Kenosha)
6610 Green Bay Road #106Who knew ice only stays ice if it’s kept cold? Apparently, the Pleasant Prairie Rec Plex did not know that.
We were in Pleasant Prairie for the annual Southport Summer Classic. This has been one of our favorite competitions for the last three years. The area around Pleasant Prairie is nice and the Rec Plex is a great facility
As long as the compressors are on.
There was a major problem with the ice when we got to the Rec Plex early Thursday morning. B’s event was the first of the day but when the Zamboni went to resurface, it turned the rink in to a puddle. Everything was melting. The compressors were off.
That delayed the competition by almost six hours. Six hours that we had to just sit at the rink, waiting for the ice to refreeze. The communication from the host club was very poor. Everyone was afraid to leave the building because they weren’t giving us a very good timeline. Then, they tried to play it off like, “oh well. Things happen” which pissed everyone else off even more.
It got to be lunch time and we knew we needed to get the kids fed. They were already stressing out. We had a couple of false starts so B had his skates on a few times only to have to take them off again because the ice was still full of puddles.
L kept saying she wasn’t hungry. She had a bagel from Starbucks earlier in the morning. B was just really stressing out and wanting to scratch at this point. We knew it’d be fine once things got going but he was prepared at 8 AM when he should of started and the false starts and lack of communication was making him anxious.
We know Jimmy John’s is always a safe bet with him. I found one not too far away so I ordered him a sandwich. J said she was hungry too and Jimmy John’s sounded good so I got her one too.
I wasn’t in the mood for Jimmy John’s so I didn’t order myself one but I went to pick it up.
My parents drove up from their place south of Chicago for the competition and they were getting annoyed as well. We were supposed to be done for the day around noon so they’d miss traffic going home. They wanted to get away from the rink for a bit too so they came with me to pick up lunch.
I told my dad if he saw something along the way he wanted to speak up and we’d grab them lunch somewhere. He surprised me when he noticed a Dave’s Hot Chicken near the Jimmy John’s and asked what that was. I explained it to him and he said that sounded like a good spot to grab something to eat.
Dave’s Hot Chicken in Kenosha is on Green Bay Road north of 67th Street in the Indian Trails Plaza. The restaurant is part of small shopping plaza in front of a Lowe’s that also includes a Red Robin. I wasn’t planning on eating there nor did I know it was even there so we didn’t put an order in ahead of time.
The restaurant is set up like a pretty typical fast food restaurant although they trend more towards fast casual. There is an order counter inside the door and a menu hanging above the window in to the kitchen. The space is actually kind of odd because there is a lot of empty space near the cash register. It feels like they didn’t really plan the layout really well. This space was a Mattress Firm before it was a restaurant so this space wasn’t really intended to be what it is today and it just feels like they missed a little on the design to use the space wisely.
I had been to a Dave’s Hot Chicken before so I knew what to expect. My parents didn’t so they needed a few minutes. When we drove by initially, my mom asked if it was like Popeyes thinking they’d just get a bucket of chicken. I told them it was more like a cross between Chick-Fil-A and Raising Cane’s but with some spicy options.
We put in our order for sliders. I got the two sliders and fries while my parents did the four mini sliders and fries to split. We also threw in a drink because I didn’t get one for B at Jimmy John’s. The cost was around $25.
There’s a pretty good sized dining room with those super uncomfortable red metal chairs and a caricature of a chicken painted on the wall. We had B and J’s Jimmy John’s in the car though so we had to get back to the rink to eat.
Fortunately, it was a somewhat nice day in Pleasant Prairie when I got back to the rink. J and B were sitting outside with B’s coach and some of the other families in our coach group. I handed them the sandwiches then went over to a cement planter nearby to set my box down to eat. I didn’t want to try to eat laying on the ground like they were so this worked out better.
I started with the fries thinking I better get to them while they’re hot. Problem was, they were never hot. The fries are frozen crinkle cut fries with a heavy seasoning on them that did give them a bit of a spicy bite. The fries themselves though were cold and had clearly been sitting there for a while. That didn’t stop me from finishing them but it was a bummer.
I was kind of leery at first but I do really like that they offer two sliders instead of one big sandwich. Each of the sliders a big piece of fried chicken covered in sauce. I picked the hot sauce which was hot, but I could have gone hotter. Each of the sandwiches is finished off with kale slaw, pickles, and Dave’s sauce on a potato bun. The sliders are three to four bite sandwiches so you get a bit of everything in each bite. The chicken is super crispy and really juicy. If I had gone back to my previous blog post from East Lansing, I would have remembered that I wanted to go hotter next time….oh, well, next time maybe I’ll remember. It was still a tasty sandwich.
Dave’s Hot Chicken wasn’t anywhere near my radar when we went out for lunch last Thursday. I was really surprised my parents were like, yeah, let’s try the place with hot chicken. It seems out of the norm for them but they liked the sliders…had the same complaint about cold fries though….so it worked out for all of us. I got something that wasn’t Jimmy John’s but we were still able to make everyone as happy as we could despite the absolutely ridiculous situation at the ice rink.
SW Michigan Dining 