a joint · TNBolton's Spicy Chicken & Fish
also: Bolton's Famous Hot Chicken & Fish · Bolton's
A small East Nashville counter at 624 Main Street selling spicy fried chicken and spicy fried fish, opened in 1997 by Bolton Matthews and Dolly Ingram. The recipe came down from Matthews's uncle Bolton Polk. Its heat is the reference point other Nashville houses get measured by.
When they’re open
Nobody has published this one's days where we could read them. That is a gap in this directory, not a closed door — call ahead, and see the Sunday question.
The story Cited · web-sfa-boltons
Bolton Polk built a family recipe for spicy fried chicken and ran The Chicken Shack in East Nashville in the 1980s. He fell ill, the shop closed in the 1990s, and the recipe went to his nephew Bolton Matthews. Matthews and Dolly Ingram had run janitorial services before this; they opened Bolton's Spicy Chicken and Fish on Main Street in 1997, his chicken and her fried fish on one board. By 2007 they had a school bus converted into a mobile kitchen.
Ingram recorded an oral history with the Southern Foodways Alliance on 31 May 2008, interviewed by Amy C. Evans for the Nashville Eats project. From it: "They're banging on the door and they're wanting their chicken…they have a craving for it…Says it gives them a rush."
The Infatuation's review puts the heat plainly: "The highest intensity level at most hot chicken joints is like a medium at Bolton's." The hot fish — catfish or whiting, onions, mustard, pickles — is the order that review calls "the true star of the show." Wings come off the same board as the rest of the bone-in pieces; the menu is parts, not a wing counter.
Inference — the fish half is not a sideline. Hot fish is its own Nashville line, a breaded whiting or catfish filet under the same cayenne treatment, and a counter that runs both is running one fryer culture, not two.
Today Cited · web-infatuation-boltons
Still at 624 Main Street in East Nashville in September 2026, in the same small building, now also billed as Bolton's Famous Hot Chicken & Fish.
The particulars
| state | TN |
|---|---|
| status | open |
| founded | 1997 |
| cooked | fried |
| styles | Nashville hot wings |
| region | Nashville |
| address | 624 Main Street, Nashville, TN, 37206 · Davidson County Cited · web-sfa-boltons |
| where | 36.1740, -86.7613 (street) · OpenStreetMap · open in maps Harvested · osm |
| links | Bolton's Famous Hot Chicken & Fish |
| confidence | medium · needs verification · updated 2026-09-16 |
Near here
Crow-flies miles; the road is always longer. The finder sorts every joint in the country from wherever you're standing.
- 2.5 mi — Hattie B's Hot Chicken Nashville 👪 Family-run 🥣 Sauce made in house
- 9.4 mi — Prince's Hot Chicken Shack Nashville 👪 Family-run ✊🏾 Black-owned 🥣 Sauce made in house
- 110.7 mi — Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q Decatur 💨 Smoked 👪 Family-run 🥣 Sauce made in house
- 191.5 mi — Ching's Hot Wings Memphis 🥣 Sauce made in house 🦴 Bone-in only
- 193.7 mi — Central BBQ Memphis 💨 Smoked 🥣 Sauce made in house 🦴 Bone-in only
Who it runs with
Who talks about it
Where we got it
- Bolton's Spicy Chicken & Fish — oral history with Dolly Ingram, Nashville Eats project · link
- Bolton's Famous Hot Chicken & Fish — review · link
- Hot chicken · link
- Bolton's Spicy Chicken and Fish - One of the Oldest African American Owned Businesses on Main Street · link
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.