{"id":345796,"date":"2026-06-22T17:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/345796\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T17:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T17:01:14","slug":"houston-tx-hot-chicken-to-open-first-international-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/345796\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston TX Hot Chicken to open first international unit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Another hot chicken concept is jumping the pond to the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Houston TX Hot Chicken on Monday announced its first international expansion, signing a master franchise agreement that will bring the brand to the U.K.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">The deal is with the casual-dining operator PizzaExpress, which operates nearly 500 units across the U.K. and Ireland within its house of brands.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Under the agreement, PizzaExpress is scheduled to open three Houston TX Hot Chicken units this year, with a total of 50 planned over three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">\u201cWorking with the PizzaExpress team to expand for the first time internationally is truly a milestone moment for us,\u201d said Brian Simowitz, president of Houston TX Hot Chicken, in a statement. \u201cNo one knows fried chicken better than HHC, and no one knows the UK market better than PizzaExpress, making this the perfect partnership. We can\u2019t wait to fly the coop and land in the UK, bringing something unexpected and exciting to chicken consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-component=\"related-article\" class=\"RelatedArticle\">Related:<a class=\"RelatedArticle-RelatedContent\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nrn.com\/fast-casual\/zaxbys-goes-big-on-chicken-bacon-ranch\" target=\"_self\" data-discover=\"true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zaxbys goes big on chicken bacon ranch<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Based in Las Vegas and founded in 2021, Houston TX Hot Chicken has about 30 units across nine states. It\u2019s owned by private-equity firm Savory Fund, which also backs brands like Swig and Mo\u2019 Bettahs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Houston TX Hot Chicken is one of <a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.restaurantbusinessonline.com\/operations\/us-restaurant-brands-see-uk-land-opportunity\">a number of U.S.-based chicken chains growing across the U.K. and Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Dave\u2019s Hot Chicken, for example, last year announced a deal with U.K.-based Azzurri Group to open 60 units in the U.K. and Ireland (as well as 180 more across Europe). To date, 12 Dave\u2019s units have opened in the U.K., with another scheduled to open next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Raising Cane\u2019s is also plotting growth in England. Chick-fil-A began expanding there last year, and Domino\u2019s is developing a chicken brand there called Chick \u2018N\u2019 Dip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another hot chicken concept is jumping the pond to the United Kingdom. Houston TX Hot Chicken on Monday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-345796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}