Crossroad Hot Chicken — Restaurant in Brandon

TLDR: Good portion cooked well but high prices. Be prepared to pay extra for sauces and wait a while.

I guess I didn't know what to expect but the person taking my order didn't really help. The only reason I gave 2 stars is the chicken "tender" portion is plentiful and the pickles are delicious. The corn ribs, ok but I've had far better - these mostly taste like the parm they coat them in. When I was looking at the menu, I saw the sauces so asked about a couple and they sounded good. I was never offered/recommended sauces when ordering.

My 2 biggest big problems are they're cheap with sauce(no no for fried chicken place) and the wait.

I'll start with the wait, we waited 28 minutes for a sandwich (made from tenders) and 3 chicken tender meals (one was kids). It's just fried tenders, at a place that specializes in pretty much just that, and there was nobody else there - why did it take almost 30 minutes?

My next big problem, and the reason I'll never come back, is I paid $15 for 3 tenders and some corn ribs and they come out fried, coated in 'seasoning' (just hot, not much actual flavor) on bread. No sauce on them (I'll take blame for not looking up pics first but I was thinking like Nashville Hot Chicken) and the slice of white bread they come with doesn't really help. Now I will give credit where due, the tenders were HUGE and cooked absolutely perfectly! But the lack of flavor, to me, was disappointing.

Being as my chicken was not sauced, I decided to ask the cashier for a sauce for my tenders, something provided at most other chicken places when you order tenders. She told me it will be almost $2! I paid because I couldn't see myself eating the tenders without sauce of some sort, and the sauce itself was pretty good, but having to pay another $2 when you already paid $15 for tenders and a side is insane to me.

After paying my $2, the cashier said my sauce would be "right out" so I sat back down and waited, for another 3-4 minutes before I got sauce. I ate my tenders and they were good with the sauce.

I definitely won't be back because we spent almost $70 on 3 adults and a kid for fried chicken that took longer than most restaurants and got nickle and...

Experienced Crossroads Hot chicken for the first time.

Food - 5 Stars This is some SERIOUSLY..... GOOD... CHICKEN. I had the Hot chicken sandwich at a Hot heat level. It pushed my tolerance levels for spicy. I would compare it Habeneros level heat. If you can handle more that 3 more levels above that so I imagine they can meet your heat needs. I got it with their homemade ranch on the side and the ranch was fantastic. I ordered kids 2 strips meal with no heat level and those were excellent as well. The breading is amazing, perfectly crispy and thick layer. I got the mac&cheese as a side and my son (and I, obviously had to try everything first!) Loved it!

Service - 5 stars No complaints here! Food came out quick, front desk worker was very nice and helpful explaining the menu as I asked different questions.

Atmosphere - 2 stars I'll start here by saying that I'm being critical cause I hope the owners see this and make some adjustments. They have a great product here and I want it to succeed. Most of the items are small, easy fixes that would make a big impact on first impressions. A) increase lighting. Went around noon but still felt like I was at pub at 5pm. Some daylight imitating bulbs and removing some of the light covers they have would help. B) get better menus, current ones poorly printed on small paper. Maybe ask if there's a college student in graphic design to help out? Just a nice laminated menu would be enough. C) Get a soda fountain. They offer cans/bottles of fridge and have a custom water machine that can make a few seltzer flavors adding a regular soda fountain would be perfect. D) Chips - My sandwich came with chips, but looks like all they had was classic lays. Either make your own house chips, add more variety or swap to fries.

Again, none of those were huge, just bundled together made me want to enjoy my meal somewhere else. However they have GREAT food and good service. I'll be back and keep providing them business and I DO recommend them to anyone that appreciates some Nashville style chicken. I'll gladly add more stars if next time if my...

Went with my wife and she had the breast and wing meal and so did I. We added the corn ribs as an extra side. She had the mild spice which was spicy for her. I had very hot and it was good. Usually I get the hottest there is but I made that mistake eating Nashville Hot chicken actually in Nashville. So I played it safe with "very hot" and It was plenty hot enough. The corn ribs are very unique and are very good...worth a try. We had macaroni salad as a side and it was the best I've had. The quality of the chicken was outstanding. Very fresh and hot. So far everything is a 5. SO this is why I gave it a 4. The sides are too small and you get one piece of plain white bread. You get either mac salad or slaw or pay extra to get something like baked beans or mac and cheese. Unsat. The mac salad costs $3 by itself but clearly cost very little to make. The drinks are mostly flavored water where you select carbonation. Whether you get it to go order or eat in it is all from a box and Is with the cheapest of plastic utensils. Dipping sauce which is a variation of Mayo with ranch dressing and something else added is very tasty. You pay extra for it. The nickel and diming is a bit much and somewhat annoying. With all the above plus 20% tip (added this because of wanting them to succeed...there is NO table service--really not worthy of a tip). $46 for chicken in a box with plastic fork and soda water. I believe the owner was the cook. There were never more than 2 parties in there at a time including us. Would have been nice with the new business he walks around and asks us how our food was. He did not and he was not very busy in the back as we could see him. All these other things match up to it. All these things match up to a 2 rating. Hence the 4 overall given the benefit of the doubt to the new business. If this stays the same and I go back in a year it would probably be a 3. All that said.... Very good food and I hope they get their feet under them and make a few changes as suggested. This is a nice thing to have every now then for something unique. I hope...