Joe DeLoss isn’t even all that into hot chicken. Sure, he prides himself on the mouth-watering grub he’s peddling. But the 32-year-old founder of Columbus hot spot Hot Chicken Takeover frequently admits that the chicken itself is a bit of a means to an end. Despite the fact that he spent months perfecting his recipes, despite the fact his wildly popular pop-up shop regularly sold out within hours, despite the fact that he’s opened three brick-and-mortar locations since he launched in early 2014, he created this for one simple reason: to do good.
That personal mission has ushered in a decade of incredible transformation for DeLoss, his business—and the people he set out to help.
DeLoss has always been an active member of his community, volunteering at shelters and soup kitchens around his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, since he was young. Soon, he noticed, the lines for food and a safe place to sleep were swelling. “What can I do to stop the line from growing?” he asked.
As a student at Capital University, DeLoss searched for ways to marry his passion for social change and his business acumen. One mentor provided an answer: social entrepreneurship.
DeLoss dabbled in starting a few different small businesses, experimenting with using a for-profit model to support community causes. Then, on a fateful trip to Nashville with his wife, DeLoss saw (and tasted) the rising success of hot chicken. “Chicken was the business where things clicked,” he says.
He first launched a pop-up restaurant in a neighborhood east of Downtown Columbus. Open seasonally and on weekends only, it doled out thousands of meals from a small window, regularly selling out.
From the start, DeLoss built his small-but-mighty team unconventionally, recruiting and investing in employees who had previously been incarcerated or homeless. As Hot Chicken Takeover grew, so did this mission. “Being a for-profit business gives us the privilege to engage in the employment model we believe in and allocate funds and benefits that support our team members,” DeLoss says.
Today, HCT boasts three locations and more than 200 employees. Seventy percent of them have been either previously incarcerated or homeless.
