Goodbye Hot Chicken Takeover

Top of Mind

Hot Chicken Takeover: Columbus Loses a Staple

For more than a decade, Hot Chicken Takeover was one of Columbus’s pride points, a food truck turned institution, a place where you brought out-of-town friends, where employees found second chances, and where fried chicken was more than a meal. On September 20, 2025, the last remaining location at North Market closed its doors, ending a chapter of the city’s modern food story.

It all started back in 2013, when Joe and Lisa DeLoss waited 90 minutes in Nashville for a plate of cayenne-heavy hot chicken. The food was unforgettable, but what stuck with Joe was the crowd: people from every walk of life, united in line by fried chicken. He came home wanting to recreate that same energy in Columbus, food as a uniter, not just a dish.

By March 2014, Hot Chicken Takeover hosted its first pop-up at the Near East Side Cooperative Market. The menu was simple, spicy chicken on white bread with pickles, coleslaw, mac ’n’ cheese, and sweet tea, but the mission was bigger. From the start, HCT became a fair-chance employer, hiring people who had been incarcerated or homeless. By 2016, more than 70% of its staff came from those backgrounds, supported with financial literacy training, counseling, and even 0% emergency loans. “They gave me a chance when no one else would,” one employee later said.

The momentum was electric. A food truck rolled out in 2015, the first North Market stall opened soon after, and by 2018, Clintonville and Easton joined the fold. Lines spilled out the door. The spice made foreheads sweat. The sweet tea washed it down. Eating at HCT became a Columbus ritual,  the thing you had to show visitors. North Market CEO Rick Harrison Wolfe said at the time, “We were proud to be their first home.”

By 2019, HCT expanded to Cleveland’s Crocker Park, and Columbus beamed. It felt like part of the city’s broader rise: Jeni’s, Homage, the Crew’s survival fight, a wave of local brands making national noise.

But then came the corporate era. HCT was acquired in 2021 by Untamed Brands, then folded into Craveworthy Brands in 2024, which rebranded it alongside a Chicago chain as HCT: Southern Chicken. Menus added chicken-fried steak and hushpuppies, but the identity blurred.

The closures followed: Lewis Center, Easton, Westerville, Grandview, Gahanna. And finally, on September 20th, 2025, the last stall at North Market went dark. Wolfe, once celebratory, now sounded defeated: “To see the relationship deteriorate to this point saddens me.”

Why It Mattered

Hot Chicken Takeover wasn’t just about fried chicken. It was about Columbus's momentum in the 2010s, a city proving it could build something original, with lines out the door and a mission that meant something. It was a place where strangers became neighbors, where employees turned setbacks into careers, and where food was always paired with dignity.

Why It Fell

The loss was partly local, partly national. Corporate ownership pulled the brand away from its roots. Food, labor, and rent costs continued to rise. And like so many restaurants in today’s economy, even beloved institutions proved fragile.

The Legacy

Still, HCT leaves behind more than empty stalls. It showed that fair-chance hiring works. It showed that Columbus could birth food ideas that matter. And it showed that sometimes, fried chicken and white bread can tell the story of a city on the rise.

Final Note: The spice is gone, the signs are down, but Hot Chicken Takeover will be remembered as more than a restaurant; it was one of the rare spots that made Columbus proud of itself.

Scarlet Letter Trivia

Question: Who was the longest serving Governor?
A. Mike Dewine
B. James A. Rhodes
C. Frank J. Lausche
D. Rutherford B. Hayes

Ohio’s Governor’s Race Heats Up

Ohio’s Governor’s Race Heats Up

Ohio hasn’t had an open governor’s seat in nearly a decade, but with Mike DeWine term-limited, the 2026 race is already shaping up to be one of the most-watched contests in the country. And while the headlines keep circling the same two names,  billionaire biotech bro Vivek Ramaswamy and pandemic-era health director Dr. Amy Acton, the full picture is a little messier, and a lot more interesting.

The GOP’s Early Bet
Republicans made their choice fast. In May, the Ohio GOP officially threw its weight behind Ramaswamy, who also carries Donald Trump’s blessing and more fundraising cash than anyone else in the field, about $8 million more than his nearest competitor. That early nod cleared the decks: Attorney General Dave Yost and Treasurer Robert Sprague both dropped out, and Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel (yes, that Jim Tressel) announced he wouldn’t run. Ramaswamy, once mocked as a longshot outsider, is now the odds-on favorite. He even scored a surprise endorsement from the Ohio Conference of Teamsters, proof that he’s trying to reach beyond the GOP base in a state where union households still matter.

The Democrats’ Torchbearer
For Democrats, the standard-bearer is Acton, the physician who guided Ohio through the chaotic first months of COVID-19. Loved by some, loathed by others, she’s built a campaign around restoring trust in government. Her team touts that she’s raised more small-dollar donations than any Ohio Democrat in history. Still, she’s fighting an uphill battle: Democrats haven’t won a governor’s race here since Ted Strickland in 2006, and national donors see Ohio as a long shot. Former Rep. Tim Ryan is still flirting with a run, but insiders say the window is closing.

The Wildcards
Not everyone is lining up neatly behind the two favorites.

• Heather Hill, a former Republican from Morgan County, left the party in August and is eyeing an independent or third-party bid. She frames herself as a conservative outsider and carries personal weight in debates over policing, two of her foster children, Ta’Kiya Young and Donovan Lewis, were both killed by law enforcement.
  

• Timothy Grady, an independent reformer (and yes, the same guy who once ran a satirical campaign as a fake supervillain named Dark Horse), says this time he’s serious. He’s the only candidate so far to name a running mate, Andrea Neutzling.
  

• Jacob Chiara, a Democrat and former Republican, is running on healthcare, jobs, and schools. He’s pitched as an outsider’s outsider, anti-Ramaswamy, anti-Acton, anti-politics-as-usual.
  

• Philip Funderburg, a 10th-generation Ohioan, is running a Trump-plus platform heavy on immigration crackdowns and conspiracy posts. He’s an unlikely contender for the governor’s mansion but loud enough online to stir headlines.

What It All Means
On the Republican side, the race feels almost over before it’s begun. Ramaswamy has the party, the money, and now even a union endorsement. Democrats, meanwhile, have rallied around Acton but face the steep climb of convincing a red-leaning state to change direction. Independents and longshots may not win, but they could complicate the math in a tight November.

For now, Ohioans are staring at a strange political cocktail: a billionaire with Trump’s backing, a doctor defined by the pandemic, and a handful of outsiders who insist there’s still room for surprises. The election is still a year away, but one thing is already certain: no one will accuse Ohio politics of being boring.

Detour Street

Downtown drivers, brace yourselves. With Front Street still closed and High Street narrowed to a single northbound lane, traffic through the Brewery District has become an exercise in patience, or reckless improvisation. Cars are stacking up as far back as Sycamore Street, and servers at Arepazo say they’ve watched drivers go the wrong way down one-way just to escape the jam. “It’s horrible,” one regular commuter put it.

The closures are part of ODOT’s massive $1.4 billion Downtown Ramp-Up rebuild. The Front Street bridge is supposed to reopen in November, but in the meantime, ODOT had to push ahead on the High Street bridge to stay on schedule. Deputy Public Service Director James Young says the city is adjusting traffic signals on Third, Fourth, and Livingston to ease the strain, though anyone who’s sat in line lately might be forgiven for not noticing.

And this is only the beginning. Crews will start tearing down and fully rebuilding the High Street bridge in late September or early October, a process expected to drag on for two years.

So if you’re crawling down High, here’s the hard truth: you’re not stuck in traffic. In Columbus right now, you are the traffic.

Trivia Answer

B) James A. Rhodes was elected to four, 4 year terms and served 16 years from 1962-1970 and 1974-1982