SCOVILLE HOT CHICKEN (311 E. Broad St., 706-850-6104): As much as I disapprove of the Chickening of downtown Athens, I have to admit that I kind of liked this small franchise from Atlantan Justin Lim. The space, which was most recently a branch of Wings Over and before that Takorea, is a lot less swanky than when it was Etienne Brasserie. It’s geared toward speedy takeout, often ordered online or at a number of touchscreens on the wall, and eating on the spot at tall tables, with customers either standing up or perching on stools. There’s very little to look at. The menu is comparably minimalist, and here I approve for sure. We should have more restaurants that serve one thing. The thing here is a chicken sandwich, available in five degrees of heat from “chill” to “reaper” and topped with coleslaw, sliced pickles and comeback sauce. You can get fries (with several dipping sauces), and you can get chicken tenders, which you can put on a sandwich, but that’s it. No salads. No veggie burgers. No chef’s specials. Don’t want hot chicken? Go to another chicken place.
In theory, I like the sandwich best because of the variety of flavors, with the other stuff there to cool down the heat. But the chicken breasts, although juicy and well fried, are a little too big. Sometimes you feel like the stuff inside the crust is taking up too much of your tooth time. The chicken tenders, on the other hand, have a better ratio of exterior to interior, with little to distract from the pure hot chicken experience. If you want something else with them, you can dunk them in a side sauce or turn your attention to the fries, which are also relatively flavor blasted. The house garlic aioli is recommended as an accompaniment. It’s a bit sweet, but in combo with the chicken the flavor profile makes sense. Heatwise, I went up to “hot,” the middle option, which will make your nose run but is still pleasurable. Is it solid drunk food? Most definitely, although the hours aren’t that late at the moment (open Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m., weekdays until 9 p.m.). Service is fast, and pandemic-wise you can get in and out pretty quickly if you’re not looking to linger around other folks eating. Consume your food as speedily as possible after ordering it, although the crispiness lingers longer than you’d think.
CRAVINGS (480 E. Broad St., 706-850-0049): Just across the street and down a little from Scoville Hot Chicken is this sandwich and coffee place that has its first location in Milledgeville. Opened just before the pandemic hit, it’s managed to stay in business despite being the kind of place that caters to lingerers rather than the to-go crowd. I don’t really get the name, which sounds more like a dessert restaurant, but the sandwiches are simple and the place is pleasant. If you like making all your own decisions, you can assemble your own sandwich from the list of choices, or you can pick a predetermined combo from the “Gourmet Sandwiches” section. They’re not huge, but they’re also not expensive, and they’re ready quickly. The spicy chicken sandwich is a different, much milder critter from the one across the street, but it’s pretty tasty. Stuff that comes on a roll (ciabatta or French) is generally superior to stuff that comes on multigrain bread, which has too much sweetness to it. The Big n’ Beefy is sort of a re-creation of an Arby’s sandwich, with thin-sliced roast beef and melted cheddar, but subbing in barbecue sauce and adding red onions. It’s simple, but it’s well put together. Ditto for the pesto chicken sandwich. Everything sort of feels like something you’d make at home, and the atmosphere is cozy, with the Wi-Fi password chalked up for all to see and a surprising amount of interior space. There are kids’ meals (grilled cheese, PB&J, ham and cheese), salads and a soup of the day. In many ways, it’s a restaurant from another time in downtown Athens, serving the sort of function Cookies & Company used to back in the day: an unpretentious, inexpensive place to grab a quick sandwich lunch, hot or cold. There are fewer of those places than there used to be, partially because franchises are better able to afford the steep downtown rents. Also, because this is 2021, Cravings has bubble tea as well, available in flavors from pineapple sunrise (pineapple, basically) to taro, honeydew and pistachio. It defaults to a milky tea, and it’s totally fine, but if bubble tea is really your thing, you have a lot of other options downtown. Cravings is open from 11 a.m.–4 p.m.. most days, although its hours seem to vary and it doesn’t open until noon on Saturdays (closed Sunday). It doesn’t have online ordering, so if you want to spend the absolute minimum of time inside, it may not be for you.
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