Jason Boso, founder of Twisted Root burgers, launches new concept: Quincy’s Chicken Shack

quincys-chicken-shack-2016-copyright-michael-hiller-073 If you’re a fan of crispy fried chicken, craft cocktails and Hill Country design, then put Quincy’s Chicken Shack on your short list of places to visit ASAP.

Jason Boso, the founder of Twisted Root burgers, opened Quincy’s Chicken Shack a few days ago in an ideal location: adjacent to his Twisted Root burger restaurant in Coppell. The two share an outdoor courtyard that’s decked out with an outdoor cocktail bar, a windmill, a 1952 green Chevy truck that can double as a bandstand, and plenty of room for your little ones to roam. It’s like the Foundry and TruckYard, only a whole lot classier.

“It’s 95% where I want it to be,” Boso told me last week as we sat on one of the quilt-covered hay bales that serve as the restaurant’s seating. “We’re going after a Texas farmhouse feel” with dirt-and-straw floors, wood picnic tables, barn doors and decorative cans as decor.

Come take a quick look around the space:

It’s Texas without being kitschy. Cocktails are pulled from taps or served from bottles capped by the bartenders. And yes, there is a Quincy; he is Quincy Hart, Boso’s longtime co-chef. Hart grew up in Oklahoma, so Boso says he knows a thing or two about great southern fried chicken. Veteran restaurateur Michael Cox (Central Market, Star Canyon, Osso Food & Wine) is on board as the director of operations.

“I was raised in a Cuban family eating ropa vieja, not fried chicken,” Boso told me. “I wanted to do something here that would reflect Quincy’s southern background.”

Boso and Quincy take a lot of care with their yardbirds. The chickens are buttermilk brined overnight then cooked on the kind of vertical rotisserie popular throughout European markets.

“As the chickens roast, their fat and juices are collected in a pan at the bottom of the oven that’s filled with potatoes, so that by the time the chickens are finished cooking, so are the potatoes.

The menu is simple: everything is served family style, roughly $13.99 a person. You order your chicken straight off the rotisserie, or rotisseried then crisp-fried in a cracker crust that’s light, flakey and breaks apart in big shards of deliciousness. The meal arrives in a red-checkered-cloth lined basket filled with a half-chicken, an ear of boiled corn and those roasted potatoes, which arrive alongside a bowl of scallion-spiked sour cream for dipping.

Additional Chicken Shacks are in development in Mansfield and near Nebraska Furniture Mart in The Colony.