Key Takeaways

From selling his house to moving back to Chicago, Joe Fontana bet everything on hot chicken.

While most restaurants abandoned it decades ago, Fontana doubled down on frying exclusively in beef tallow.

From viral fryer videos to family photos on the walls, he shows how narrative can turn a restaurant into a movement.

Joe Fontana had barely opened the doors of Fry the Coop when he sat down with his mother-in-law over a glass of wine.

That’s when she dropped the kind of line only family can deliver. “After the restaurant fails and closes, what are you going to do?” Fontana recalls, laughing.

The restaurant owner ‘s answer was stubborn and fearless: “There is no plan B here. It’s either kill or be killed.”

That belief had been brewing for years. Fontana once held a ste

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