Kick'N Chicken To Bring Nashville-Style Food To Farmingdale

FARMINGDALE, NY — Kick'N Chicken is bringing a taste of Nashville to Farmingdale. The chicken restaurant is set to hold its grand opening on Dec. 18 at 342 Main St.

Ryan Carroll, the owner and head chef, fell in love with Nashville-style chicken during a trip to Tennessee. While running his non-profit, Carroll's Kitchen Long Island, Carroll came across the empty Farmingdale storefront and proposed bringing a chicken joint to the village.

"It’s something Farmingdale needs for sure," Carroll told Patch.

What makes Nashville-style delicious, Carroll said, is the oil and spice mix the chicken is dunked in.

The Kick'N Chicken menu features sandwiches; chicken tenders; tenders served over a split-top brioche bun; meal plates and buckets; and a variety of hot sauces, including "Blazin' Inferno," which requires a daring customer to sign a waiver.

For those wanting something sweet, the restaurant also offers milkshakes and gelato.

The store is set to remain open five hours later than usual — until 2 a.m. — on Fridays and Saturdays, where a limited late-night menu will be on the docket, and the Kick'N Chicken chefs will prepare secret menu items with a twist.

Carroll himself went from fine dining to fried chicken. A Sayville native, Carroll graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked as a chef in New York City before the coronavirus pandemic impacted his livelihood.

He launched Carroll's Kitchen Long Island and helped feed more than 220,000 people in need during the pandemic. The non-profit's mission is to battle food insecurity on Long Island.

Now, the chef has his own restaurant in Farmingdale.

"It’s a nice town," he said. "A nice strip. A lot of up-and-coming restaurants on the block. I think it’s got a good demographic for what we’re doing."

To make his chicken representative of Nashville, Carroll said he gets his spices from somewhere in the state of Tennessee. The spices, while crucial to good fried chicken, are not the only factor in what Carroll hopes will set Kick'N Chicken apart.

Really clean oil, a good choice of chicken, breading it properly and knowing when to serve it all contribute to a delicious serving of chicken, according to Carroll.

"It’s very simple," he said. "People just overthink it a lot. It’s really about having a good product, frying it in very clean oil, and selling it."

Kick'N Chicken will be cashless, and the restaurant will accept credit or debit cards as well as mobile payments.