Hangry Joe’s chicken restaurant opens Saturday, Sept. 21, in Rockford

ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) – After spending months building out a space that consisted of only four walls and a dirt floor, the local owners of a Nashville hot chicken restaurant are ready to go live.

Hangry Joe's, 6150 E. State St., will open at 11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 21.

Owner Brandon Wilhelm announced in June that he was bringing a Hangry Joe's Hot Chicken & Wings in Rockford and he hoped to be open by mid-August. He then adjusted those plans and was shooting for a Sept. 5 grand opening. Unforeseen delays, however, pushed things back at bit further.

"A couple shipping things and couple issues, but we got all the equipment in. It took a lot of work," he said. "Our contractors really, really hustled to push everything through for the last few minutes. We had a couple little architectural plan changes along the way."

Highlighting the Hangry Joe's is an 8-ounce chicken sandwich that put the brand on the map, the Mega Sando.

"It's marinated with our proprietary marinade and seasoning and fried," Wilhelm said.

And then there are the different levels of hot.

"You can go no heat or no seasoning if you just want plain chicken, mild, medium, hot and then angry hot," he said.

Anyone is welcome to take very flavorful Angry Hot Challenge, but beware, the main ingredient at that level—ghost peppers—can be a little too spicy for the faint of heart.

"We've witnessed them working really hard to put the chicken place together," said Heba Haddad, who works at Crumbl. We've all been talking about how excited we are for it to open so that we can all try it. I really like hot chicken, so I'm super excited."

Hangry Joes is between Sketchers and Crumbl.