Open less than three months, this new restaurant in Warner Robins closes permanently
The Hot Chik in Warner Robins is closed permanently after less than three months in business.
“We thank the community for the support that has been shown,” reads a notice taped to the front door. “With food and labor costs where they are right now, we cannot continue to effectively pursue our original concept.
“And we are not willing to compromise the concept by decreasing the quality or the standard of our product.”
The Hot Chik, which opened Sept 9., was a new restaurant concept from Cathy and Michael Reece.
The couple own and operate the popular and independent restaurant, Props Steak and Seafood, which has been doing a brisk business in Warner Robins since it opened four years ago.
The Hot Chik offered Nashville hot chicken, rotisserie chicken, wings, fresh vegetables, wine slushies and boozy milkshakes
The Reeces decided to “rip the Band-Aid off” — closing their new restaurant on Saturday, Nov. 19.
“The concept is good. The food was great,” Cathy Reece said. “I just don’t know right now in these times especially with food costs being as extreme as they are and then, I mean, labor costs are just ridiculous. To get people to walk through the door, you’re paying teenagers $12 an hour.
“There’s only a certain price point people will pay for chicken. We were messing around with the numbers and if you increase sales, then you have to increase food, which increases the food costs, and then you have to increase the people in the building to serve the food, so that increases labor costs. Right now, in these economic conditions, there’s just no way to make up the difference.”
There was an alternative to closure but the Reeces weren’t willing to consider it.
“One of the ways to keep The Hot Chik open was to start talking about sacrificing quality, getting cheaper chicken, using cheaper ingredients, and we just were not willing to do that,” Reece said. “That said, if we did that at The Hot Chik and served a bunch of junk, then that would reflect poorly on Props because everybody knows that we had both.”
Other possible factors
Shane’s Rib Shack and then The Taco Shed previously failed in the same location at 670 Lake Joy Road, Suite 400. Reece was asked if she thought that the location may have been a contributing factor.
“It may have,” Reece said. “It’s a difficult location to get into. But also there’s no drive-thru and Mike will tell you he wanted a drive thru the entire time.
“I think post COVID world, people like the drive thru. People got used to not having to go in. And they got used to drive-thrus and delivery and we did not offer the drive thru. I did offer delivery but not the drive-thru.”
The Reeces had planned to keep the restaurant open through Sunday, Nov. 20.
“We had anticipated getting through the weekend and actually talking to everybody and making a public statement on Sunday,” Reece said. “But then one of my managers called and said, ‘Cathy, we’re out of a lot of the food.’
“So we just made the decision to go ahead and do it then. It’s even worse if you have people come in and you say we’re out of this and we’re out of this and we’re out of this. Then it makes people very angry and I certainly didn’t want to do that.”
They posted the same notice that’s on the front door of the restaurant on Facebook. Reece has since taken down the restaurant’s Facebook page.
While people were very supportive in their comments, Reece said she deactivated the Facebook page simply because she didn’t have time to continue monitoring it.
Reece said she feels like they made the right decision in closing The Hot Chik, and at the right time, they might bring the concept back or even something completely new.
They do not plan to renew their lease at that location.
“You know, it was hard to do,” she said. “But now that it’s done, it’s kind of a relief, and like I said, we’ll just move on to the next thing.”
