Joella’s Hot Chicken - Hamburg — Restaurant in Lexington

While staying in a different part of Lexington than I am used to, I stumbled around to find a place to eat until a strange sense of nostalgia came over when I noticed Joella's while stopped at the nearby Meijer. Mostly because a year before I had hot chicken out in Utah and seeing that, I decided to try Joella's Hot Chicken. The atmosphere is great with fun decor as well as plenty of seating both inside and in their "patio" on the south side of the building. The service as good as well with a polite server who made sure my order was moving as quick as possible. Joella's serves their chicken either in nuggets, tenders or sandwiches which are whole boneless thighs. Additionally, you can pick your heat level on your chicken as well from "Southern" (no heat) up to "Fire-in-da-Hole" (waiver-worthy heat). I believe there is also an "impossible" chicken option on their menu as well not much else for vegetarian entree options. I had the Big Pimento sandwich as a combo choosing their thin and crispy fries and their "Jo's Sauce" dipping sauce. The dipping sauce cup is pretty generous in size though I would say better suited for their nuggets or tenders...or their fries. "Jo's Sauce" actually goes great with their fries as well. I went with "Hot" because I was still on the road and I didn't want to punish myself. Holy cow that is a BIG chicken thigh! If that's the typical piece of thigh you get on your sandwich, that is a great portion for the price and that's a lot of cluck in between two buns. The "Hot" level was just right for me. It was flavorably hot without being painful and had a decent bit of crunch on the skin. The surprise was the pimento cheese they serve on the sandwich; prepare with napkins as it is runnier than you expect pimento cheese to be. It is pretty good pimento cheese though and it paired well with the chicken. The fries seemed light and crispy to me and I enjoyed dipping them in the sauce as much as I enjoyed dipping them in the ketchup. A meal for one is around $13-15 and I know some will balk but having been to another hot chicken place myself, this seems normal for a sandwich combo to me. They also have a $30 meal that feeds four with is a REALLY good bang for your buck. If you're looking for your hot chicken fix and not in Nashville, Joella's might just help...

I wish I could have given this review more stars than 1 knowing we had such high hopes going into ordering… My husband and I were road tripping from Minnesota and decided to give this “highly recommended” restaurant a go. We truly wanted a good Kentucky fried chicken experience, but were very unsatisfied. We placed a to-go order WELL ahead of time to align with when we would be arriving on our travel plans to Tennessee. We even went 20 minutes out of our way to grab a bite to eat here. When I arrived, it was busy, but I figured our previously placed order would be ready, but that wasn’t the case. I told the lovely lady at the counter my name/order, and proceeded to wait 25 additional minutes from the “promised” pickup time to receive my order. I watched every person who ordered and picked up their order ahead of me before I politely questioned what was the hold up. There were only two employees there that I could see (cashier and cook?)— not enough staff to reasonably handle the lunchtime rush/flow. I don’t blame the staff at all as I could see their efforts in doing everything they could, but she told me “our order was lost in the queue” or something along the lines of an “error” even after I confirmed the order number and correct location, which was confusing… aside from the lack of timeliness, the food was awful. Our chicken was dripping with oil and soggy. The breading fell off from the oil — not to mention, every item was cold. Barely edible. We were very disappointed, hungry, and had to go elsewhere to get something to eat. The restaurant inside, overall, was very dirty and unclean. Flies and garbage everywhere. Unfortunately, we were extremely disappointed and wished for a...

Hello to the good folks at Joella’s.

My family and I just finished a lunch at the Hamburg location today. I must state, the meal was flavorable, and all was cooked appropriately. I have no complaints on that situation. You folks provide a product.

Now. For the situation in which brought me to scribe a review.

Let me state, I am a somewhat regular patron of this location (Hamburg), and I feel comfortable stating, ‘that there is zero/nil customer service at this location. It just seems like every employee is in a super bad mood.

Todays lunch was something that I’ve seen in past visits. We ordered our food, sat down and placed our number on the table. 5 minutes pass. 10 minutes pass. My wife and I look at the counter, and I counted 7 folks waiting for food. I also noticed around every folk sitting at a table, literally zero people had food. Everyone was waiting. Folks began approaching an empty register requesting a refund. To be honest, I pondered doing the same, however I was super hungry lol.

After 25 minutes after placing our order, a lady came from the back and told all in the store, ‘sorry for the wait, we have been overwhelmed with DoorDash orders, your food will be out soon.’

When I heard this, it hit me. I think this scenario could be avoided by limiting your DoorDash orders at certain points during the day. Take care of your bread and butter customers as opposed to the company that bends you over the coals with their 30 percent service fee.

As a small business owner myself, this type of stuff just isn’t a good look. I like this company, and really want to see it succeed.

All my...