New delivery-only cheffy fried chicken sandos coming to S.A.

Fried chicken sandwiches will soon take flight in San Antonio with the launch of a deliveryonly business dubbed Motel Fried Chicken in December.

San Antonio chef James Canter has partnered with Philadelphiabased chef Chad Rosenthal to bring his concept to Texas. Rosenthal launched Motel Fried Chicken in Philadelphia earlier this year. He and Canter hope to expand the model through Texas and westward, and are eyeing Austin as their next location soon.

Motel Fried Chicken will serve buttermilk fried chicken sandwiches using Rosenthal’s detailoriented recipe that first brines the poultry in an herb-heavy solution and then finishes with additional fresh herbs in the breading.

Initially the business will only serve the chicken in sandwiches with mayonnaise and housemade pickles or as fried chicken tenders called Motel Pillows with the option of waffle fries on the side. Fried chicken baskets with other side dishes will be added at a later date.

The new business will operate as a ghost kitchen — a restaurant model in which there’s no brickand-mortar location for dine-in or takeout — out of a kitchen inside the LocalSprout food hub in San Antonio, where Canter also houses his catering and food truck outfit Guerrilla Gourmet. Canter said they’ll debut Motel Fried Chicken on third-party food delivery platforms such as Grubhub, Uber Eats, Favor and others.

Canter and Rosenthal met through a chefs’ collective called Messlords, a group composed of chefs who’ve made appearances on Food Network cooking shows. Canter competed on the show “Guy’s Grocery Games” and Rosenthal has had multiple stints on “Food Network Star” and “Chopped.”

Messlords organizes cooking events for troops around the globe through the support organization Navy Entertainment. Canter and Rosenthal met during an event in Cuba.

Motel Fried Chicken initially will operate Tuesday through Saturday; the exact hours have not yet been set. More at motelfriedchicken.com or Facebook: @motelfriedchicken.