The Chicago-based owner of the now-shuttered Hot Chicken Takeover brand faces lawsuits in Franklin County alleging the company owes more than $100,000 to two Columbus-area landlords.
Cases filed in November 2024 by Easton Gateway and in June 2025 by Sintel Retail claim that Craveworthy Brands has broken lease terms for its failure to pay rent, late fees and interest at locations in Easton and Lewis Center, respectively.
The owner of a third Hot Chicken Takeover location, the nonprofit North Market Development Authority, says it is owed “significant amounts in back rent as well as other outstanding expenses” for space at the North Market Downtown that the restaurant closed in mid-September.
It was the seventh and last closing for the brand this year. Hot Chicken Takeover shuttered restaurants in Lewis Center in January, Easton in March, Clintonville in July, and Grandview, Gahanna and Westerville in early September.
Franklin County Municipal Court records show owners of the Gahanna building that housed Hot Chicken Takeover were owed nearly $17,000 in rent and had obtained a judge’s permission in August to evict the restaurant.
A Craveworthy Brands spokeswoman said the company wouldn’t comment on legal and contractual matters.
“We are not able to discuss those details outside of the appropriate processes and channels,” head of public relations Klaudia Rudny said in an email to The Dispatch.
About the decision to close Hot Chicken Takeover altogether, she offered a statement that called it “extremely difficult.”
“Hot Chicken Takeover is a brand with deep roots and a meaningful story here in Columbus. When we first brought the brand into the Craveworthy family from its previous owner, it was at its lowest point and only days away from closing its doors for good then,” the statement read.
“We believed in its spirit and the passion this community had for it, so we stepped in to ensure the brand had a fighting chance at survival. Since, we have invested countless resources and fought tirelessly to rebuild and grow Hot Chicken Takeover, but ultimately, even with those efforts, it became unsustainable.”
Lawyers for property owners who’ve sued Craveworthy didn’t respond to requests for comment from The Dispatch.
North Market has spoken out, though. A statement issued Sept. 20 by CEO and Executive Director Rick Harrison Wolfe said Hot Chicken Takeover was in default of its lease and “remained uncooperative” with the market’s attempts to resolve the issue.
Wolfe said Sept. 22 that the restaurant owed several months’ rent, but the exact amount has yet to be calculated. North Market took possession of the Hot Chicken Takeover space after discussions about an orderly turnover went unresolved.
“Ultimately, we couldn’t get to a point where we felt secure that what was being discussed would be fulfilled by HCT,” he said.
At Easton, property owner Easton Gateway filed suit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court claiming Hot Chicken Takeover owed $67,562.37 in unpaid rent and expenses. Family-owned Sintel, which owns Hot Chicken Takeover’s former premises at 8715 Owenfield Drive in Lewis Center, said in a separate lawsuit that the restaurant’s owners made good on a promise in March to pay the last of a back-rent bill of $24,833.85, but built up another unpaid amount in the process.
Its lawsuit claims Sintel Retail is still owed $38,751.62. The company’s lawyers also say in court filings that Hot Chicken Takeover vacated the property without notice and left the owner of the building to find out about the closing through media reports.
In another Franklin County lawsuit, filed in November 2024 but dropped in February 2025, a Strongsville property owner claimed to be owed $346,961 in rent and other charges at a restaurant site closed by a previous owner in 2022.
Hot Chicken Takeover’s history
Hot Chicken Takeover got its start as an Olde Towne East pop-up in 2014 before moving into a food truck, North Market, and standalone restaurants. Founder Joe DeLoss, who won fans not just for his chicken but also for his progressive workplace policies, sold the business to Untamed Brands in 2021.
Untamed was acquired by Craveworthy, the owner of BD’s Mongolian Grill, Genghis Grill and other fast-casual chains, in May 2024.
Dining reporter Bob Vitale can be reached at rvitale@dispatch.com or at @dispatchdining on the Instagram social platform.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Shuttered Hot Chicken Takeover chain owes more than $100K to landlords, lawsuits allege
Reporting by Bob Vitale, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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