All the Weird Stuff I Saw When I Spent the Night in a Fried Chicken Shop

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Food

All the Weird Stuff I Saw When I Spent the Night in a Fried Chicken Shop

Suddenly, the doors of Fried Chicken Pizza Hot burst open. To rapturous applause from the kitchen staff, an elderly man dressed in head-to-toe denim steps inside.

They say that East London is losing its heart. They say an irrevocable wave of hyper gentrification is swooshing through its neon corridors, leaving nothing but expensive shiny flats populated by expensive shiny city boys eating expensive shiny pizzas and downing expensive shiny pints of pale ale. It's all gotten so expensive and, well, dull.

But on an Easter bank holiday in Dalston—that gentrification mecca—I saw a different side to the East End and its decreasingly seedy streets. A side I'm now convinced can only be witnessed from the window seat of a late night fried chicken shop.

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READ MORE: The MUNCHIES Guide to British Food

Opposite Birthdays, a stone's throw from Efes, and a hop, skip, and a jump to The Nest, is Fried Chicken Pizza Hot: the Fort Knox of drunken Dalston revellers. By spending a night in this most democratic of dining institutions (i.e. a place anyone can come and eat fried chicken 'til they're not pissed anymore), I hoped to find out once and for all whether the heart of East London is still beating, albeit with an erratic cholesterol-ridden tempo.

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Fried Chicken Pizza Hot in Dalston, London. All photos by Chris Bethell.

10 PM My photographer Chris and I arrive at our holy white home for the night, watching as groups of excitable punters begin to populate the street outside.

I make a quick confession to Chris: "To be honest mate, I'm hungover as fuck and have actually been really looking forward to getting some fried chicken, I hope you don't mind."

"I was going to say the exact same thing," he replies.

I order the "number four," which is a chicken strip burger, four hot wings, fries, and a Fanta (chicken count: five, Fanta count: one). I think Chris gets a two-piece with fries and a Coke although I can't really remember because I was too focused on chewing.

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Inside Fried Chicken Pizza Hot.

10.12 PM With our bellies well greased and feeling safely ensconced in our surroundings, I strike up a conversation with Butt, who's taking orders behind the counter. He says that he's been working in the fast food game for eight years and every night of the week, "crazy people enter into the shop."

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I ask Butt if he's the manager of Fried Chicken Pizza Hot.

"Would I be sitting here talking to you on a Saturday night if I was the manager?"

Fair play, Butt. Fair play.

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Fried Chicken Pizza Hot staff member Butt.

10.33 PM I notice that a guy on a nearby table has been alternating between holding his head in his hands and smiling into the infinite abyss for the past ten minutes. It's a look I can relate to, so I strike up a convo.

"I am jush here becaush my girlfriend wash feeling quite shick, so I came here to find hurr," he says, his Dutch accent clunking as solidly as a pair of clogs.

But the girlfriend is nowhere to be seen.

"Yesh, I wash drinking beersh with hurr, but I got losht, and I thought to myshelf, 'I better get shome friesh while I'm waiting.'"

If I wasn't able to tell that our new friend was Dutch from his accent, the amount of mayo walloped onto his chips is a giveaway. I ask if he wants some chili sauce to balance it out.

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Our Dutch friend.

"Chilli schaush? But these are friesh? They only need mayo … mayo and nothing elsh."

10.55 PM After all that fried chicken, I'm feeling a bit parched and order another Fanta (Fanta count: 2).

10.56 PM Who am I kidding? I'd better get another piece of chicken in as well (Chicken count: 6).

11.13 PM After a brief moment of calm, the doors of Fried Chicken Pizza Hot burst open. To the sound of rapturous acknowledgement from Butt and his team, an elderly man dressed in head-to-toe denim steps inside. I'm reminded of Norm walking into the bar on Cheers.

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"Hey! This is my favourite chicken shop! Hey man! My favourite one!" he shouts.

It's a pretty good chicken shop, I must admit, but I have to know more.

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Percy.

"Well, one day I came in and ordered a two-piece," explains our denim OG. "And they gave me another piece—a wing! That's how they get the customers, they know their market."

Clutching a can of Special K and now chomping on a chicken strip, he tells me his name is Percy.

"All a man wants or needs in this world is his food. And his JUICE."

And with that, Percy triumphantly thrusts his tinny skyward.

11.37 PM I notice Chris becoming increasingly perturbed by a customer sitting in the opposite corner.

"I think that guy just threw a wing at my ankle," he says.

"Are you sure?" I reply. "Why would he throw a wing? And at your ankle as well? Who would do that?"

"I'm pretty sure he did," says Chris, sadly. "Look, there's the wing."

Sure enough, the incriminating wing is lying on the floor like a bloodied glove.

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The incriminating wing.

11.38 PM "Sorry about that mate! Didn't mean to be aggressive, I just felt like throwing something."

There he is. Wing-thrower, ankle-greaser, and worst of all, food waster, tucking into his oversized ribs without a care in the world. His name is Carodog and he sounds more Welsh than a freestyle battle between Tom Jones and Katherine Jenkins. He's also pissed as fuck.

"I tell you what I'm into," Carodog bellows, unprompted. "I'm well into Less Than Jake. Ska music—I used to listen to it all the time when I was a kid but I've got well back into it."

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He makes a kind of duh, duh, duh, neuwww noise while playing an air guitar.

"Fuckin' love it, I do," he says, before pausing and looking solemn. "Ah, look mate. I'm really sorry about the whole wing thing. You fellas are actually a solid bunch."

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Carodog.

11.49 PM I ask Butt when things start to get busy in Fried Chicken Pizza Hot.

"Busy? Things get busy right about now."

Cool, may as well hop outside for a fag before the midnight rush. May as well have another Fanta while I'm at it. May as well make it a Fruit Twist—variety is the spice of life, after all. (Fanta count: 3).

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11.53 PM On the pavement outside, we come face-to-face with the smoking area of Escudo De Cuba, a neighbouring Cuban bar that seems to be hosting a night for the original cast of Fame. There are skin-tight vests and leggings as far as the eye can see, and people are instructing each other on how best to pull your foot over the back of your head. It looks a stone cold vibe, I tell you.

Oh well, back to the chicken.

12.37 AM Butt's promised rush still hasn't materialised. A guy who looks like Mark from Peep Show enters in with his girlfriend and sits next to us. They refuse our attempts to chat, more interested in eating what looks like the maximum amount of fried chicken two people can ingest in a single sitting. To be honest, I wouldn't want to talk to me if I was drunk in a chicken shop, either.

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12.58 AM From out of nowhere, a guy sweeps into Fried Chicken Pizza Hot to pick up a pizza I don't remember Butt ever taking an order for. I'm at the counter getting another piece of chicken (chicken count: 7), when he turns to us and points at his phone.

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"You know it's daylight saving time tonight?"

Butt, Chris, and I are sceptical. If it was daylight savings time, it would've changed already on the clocks. I would've known. Time is something I regularly pay attention to. He pauses, holding up his phone.

2.00 AM Holy shit, he's right. It's fucking two o'clock! I just lost an hour in a whirlpool of saturated fat. The guy grabs his pizza, smiling a gleaming, gold-toothed smile and giving a wink that almost has me swooning like a 1950s damsel in distress. Who the fuck was that guy?

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2.10 AM Suddenly, Mark from Peep Show catches wind that Chris and I are "journalists."

I'm sitting in a chicken shop, three Fantas down and stone-cold sober on a bank holiday Saturday, so he's playing very fast and loose with the term "journalist," but yeah, I guess I write stuff for a living. Mark grins across at us.

"Why don't you get a real job? I'm being serious, like … "

His girlfriend grabs his arm and murmurs something indecipherable to him.

"No, no, it's fine, I'm fine, I just wanna ask them," Mark insists. "Let me ask, so why don't you get a REAL job?"

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Chris, being the gentle giant that he is, attempts to diffuse the situation with polite retorts. I, on the other hand, am seven pieces of chicken to the wind and not liking his tone. I reply that he is embarrassing himself in front of his girlfriend, which he doesn't enjoy one bit.

2.13 AM With a globule of what I hope is mayonnaise dangling from his nose, Mark-from-Peep-Show is now leaning over me, his breath hot with chicken fat and ketchup.

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"WHY don't you get a REAL job. WHY don't you? Well? WHY are you WASTING your TIME?"

I may be a sober man in a drunk king's palace, but enough is enough. I will not be spoken to like this. I stand up and Mark and I go eye-to-eye in this chicken coliseum—me bloated from excess soft drinks, him with a bit of mayo hanging from his nose. Thankfully for both of us, the girlfriend has had enough of our frankly embarrassing display and shoves Mark out of the shop.

Christ, I'm not even drunk and I almost got in a drunken fight. That calls for another Fanta (Fanta count: 4).

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The happy drunk couple.

3.11 AM Butt's promised rush is now in full swing. Customers pile in at every angle, from a drunk girl who refuses to take her hoodie down even when eating to ravers leaving The Nest and a guy who did a little dance when he got his food. A couple who don't seem to know each other share a table. I ask if they met tonight.

"Yeah, we're eating this food then going back to mine to fuck."

Everyone is very drunk.

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The vegetarian.

3.45 AM Just as the place starts to wind down, two women step in. I ask what they're ordering.

"I'm a vegetarian so …"

But this is a fried chicken shop.

"Yeah but they do pizza too, y'know? I'm not an idiot, I can see it's a fried chicken shop but it also says "pizza hot" outside, thank you very much."

I been told.

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4.01 AM The shutters are closing on Fried Chicken Pizza Hot. I've managed seven pieces of chicken, four Fantas, one fight, and countless pissed up chats. As Chris and I say our goodbyes to Butt and co., I wonder if we've just witnessed the real Dalston. One that doesn't give a fuck about how it looks and really just wants some tasty fried chicken.

If we have, it was actually pretty fun.

All photos by Chris Bethell.

For more drunk English people eating things, check out the MUNCHIES Guide to British Food.