World Famous Hotboys is headed to the west side of Carmel.
The hot chicken restaurant will move into a spot that formerly housed Prodigy Burger Bar at 4335 W. 106th St. Prior to that, the spot was home to a Stacked Pickle and 106th Street Grill. The first World Famous Hotboys outside of California opened in Fountain Square in Indianapolis in 2022.
Aaron Tann, a Carmel resident, said he hopes the restaurant will open before the end of the year. Tann and cousin Kyle Roberts of Fishers, are the operating owner-partners.
“Our restaurants have a lot of artwork, murals and graffiti,” Tann said. “Right now we’re working on that. We have to build a fake wall because we can’t paint on the brick in Carmel. It’s going to be a really cool place, family-oriented. Around 10 o’clock at night it will probably go to an over-21 place with live entertainment, music, DJs and adult slushies.”
Tann said there will be arcades for kids to play during the earlier hours.
The Carmel restaurant is 10 times larger than the Fountain Square location, which opened in May 2022.
Tann said the restaurant will seat between 100 and 120 guests, and when the patio is open it could accommodate dozens more. Tann said he expects to have 25 to 30 employees.
“Fountain Square does really well,” Tann said. “A lot of people from Carmel, Fishers and Zionsville come down there. They keep asking us, ‘When are you going to be up north?’ Now we’re coming up north.”
World Famous Hotboys started in California, opening its first restaurant in Oakland in December 2019. There also are California restaurants in Sacramento and Walnut Creek.
Tann said it is a family business.
“We have multiple restaurants in our family’s portfolio,” Tann said. “All the funky artistic, culinary people are here at Hotboys with us.”
Berk Gibbs, the Hotboys artist and muralist, and Victor Ghaben created the concept.
“Kyle and I are the two family members who live in the Indy area and wanted to bring Hotboys here,” Tann said.
