Rocky’s Hot Chicken Shack Arden — Restaurant in Asheville

Food's GREAT. Service has gone to hell.

So I just dropped $50 plus a $6.00 TAKE OUT order tip. Ordered sandwich, pot pie, chicken leg meal plus 6 MAC POPPERS. My daughter ordered ranch dressing for her chicken.

Upon pick up, I noticed that even with 6 Mac poppers, we didn't have any zip sauce (the kind that comes with it). I let the woman at the pick up window know this, and she said she'd get some. She did. One small - ONE container. The smallest. For 6 Mac poppers. I'd already told her I received the ranch, but NO zippy, sauce and she brings ONE small container. This is the second time this has happened.

There is a line outside, and I'm not going to wait 5 minutes to tell her YET AGAIN that our order didn't come with the zippy sauce it was supposed to. I told her once, and she brings just ONE small sauce.

Just lost a customer. I've gone there for years, and they've gotten weird with their sauces, and it's absurd that we drop almost $60 and can't get a few sauces that COME WITH THE MAC POPPERS.

It feels petty, but it's not. Our food is incomplete and we spend too much for this, and when I tell her we didn't get the sauce for two orders of poppers, she only brings back one of the small containers. No. Done. Lost a customer (actually, probably more than a few) over a spoon full of sauce they didn't want to give to us. I won't be giving them my business again.

I'm so mad and I don't even want the poppers anymore. They're not great without the sauce, and I have come too many times and given my business for too long to get this kind of brush off, even when I bring it to their attention. I am embarrassed to make a post like this, but enough is enough. If you can't offer sauce when you charged me over $7 for the poppers and I cant get sauce for it? No thanks, I won't order from this...

The chicken tenders are very good, and if you tell them hot, they are going to make them Hot! 🥵 - but it's good though. If you like spicy food, try it. But medium is probably best for most folks, it still has a little kick. And, of course, there are two levels of hot above hot 😅 -i haven't tried those yet. The collard greens are good, the macaroni - I've had it twice, and one time it was as good as macaroni and cheese can be, it was fantastic. The second time it was overcooked and kind of mushy. Hopefully that was a one-off error. The service is ok, for some reason they don't have a cash register in their take out station, so they have to walk all the way inside to use a register at the bar, which seems strange, but it doesn't take very long. When it's busy it can feel like there aren't enough employees to handle it all, but everything has turned out good food wise. The "Woo Cheese" sauce is great for chicken tenders if you like blue cheese and spice. The "mango habanero aioli" sauce tastes good, but it doesn't really taste like mango or habanero 😄 - I don't know what's in it, but it makes a good dip. Anyway, it's a pretty good place to get fried chicken. It tastes better than KFC or Bojangles. It costs about triple Bojangles, though, so keep that in mind. As of 8/12/22 it's still good. (Google wanted me to update the review. We haven't been disappointed yet, the worst that has happened was one time the macaroni was overcooked, but that's it.) Besides lowering the price, I can't think of a suggestion to make it...

First off, very cool place to eat and I am glad that I visited! It has a very relaxed environment and service was excellent. Had a line out of the door when I arrived in the afternoon (~15 min wait). If you're not a local, use the time to look at the menu while you wait.

What I ordered:

3 piece tender plate with crinkle cut fries and fried okra with cheerwine bbq dipping sauce. I added on a additional thigh and a coca-cola cake. All the chicken I got flavored in Rocky's hot sauce.

Review:

Chicken tenders were very juicy had a really good amount of Rockys Sauce on top of them. As far as spicyness I give it a 7/10. It's hot enough to make your nose run, but doesn't dish out punishment for choosing that spice level. If you're more spice sensitive, select a lower heat level and enjoy the flavor. Tenders overall 7/10 Chicken thigh was really juicy and had more sauce than the tenders. It seemed to penetrate further into the meat as well. 8/10 Fries were crinkle cut obviously and had a good blend of crispy but not overcooked. 8/10 Okra was fried perfectly and reminds me of south Louisiana 10/10 Coke Cake was a little dry but still tasty. Very chocolatey and the icing on top reminds me of fudge. 6/10

Total bill was ~35 bucks with a drink/tip, so a pretty good value all things considered.

In summary:

A very swanky restaurant with a good atmosphere, outdoor seating, and lots of things to choose from. I'll for sure be back! 9/10...