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ORAL HISTORY
Dolly Ingram
Bolton’s Spicy Chicken & Fish
The late Bolton Polk had a family recipe for spicy fried chicken and used it to open The Chicken Shack in East Nashville in the 1980s. Bolton’s chicken—and his wife’s chess pies—was a hit. But Bolton took ill, and the restaurant closed in the 1990s. Before he passed, Bolton shared his hot chicken recipe with his nephew, Bolton Matthews.
Bolton Matthews and Dolly Ingram both owned janitorial services before getting into the restaurant business. In 1997, armed with his uncle’s spicy chicken recipe and Dolly’s take on fried fish, they opened Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish on Main Street.
In 2007, they converted an old school bus into a mobile kitchen and now take Nashville’s famous hot chicken to the masses.
