I'll state the obvious: San Luis Obispo is full of hot chicken spots. But one of them draws its inspiration from Korean-style fried chicken and offers non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to keep you coming back for more.

Added to the Creamery Marketplace in July, HellaHot stands out among the center's brown and matte black structures. The red-and-white striped restaurant and its screens blaring funky animated chickens welcomed me in. If the place is called HellaHot, I'm ready to test the heat.

"I knew you were Indian when you ordered the HH Invitational," said HellaHot co-owner Joe Alerta with a laugh.

Well, I look Indian even when I'm not ordering the spiciest chicken on the menu.

Alerta, on the other hand, likes his poultry on the tame side.

"Medium's even pushing it," he said. "I'd probably get a mild sando, maybe even a HellaPlain!"

Alerta runs HellaHot with his brother Jeremy and his business partner, Tony Antillon. He devised the menu while Jeremy and Antillon taste-tested the spice level with a friend who told them he could handle all the heat. The trio are neighbors in North Hollywood now and live behind a Dave's Hot Chicken, of all places. But the Alerta brothers were born in Guam and grew up in Lompoc. Antillon went to high school in Arroyo Grande. Now the restaurateurs commute to SLO from LA every week.

• Photos Courtesy Of HellaHot
• CROWING FOR MORE HellaHot's hot chicken sandwich comes with a breaded chicken breast lacquered with spicy oil and topped with pickles, cooling coleslaw, and lashings of their special sauce.

They wanted in on the hot chicken trend that's gripped Southern California over the past five years.

"We fell in love with hot chicken. We went to Nashville and all its original hot chicken spots," Alerta said. "We looked at the food scene here and there was no hot chicken. We were the first to announce, but our permits took longer than expected, so Jay Bird's and Dave's beat us to the punch."

HellaHot delivers five levels of spice. They use different ratios of cayenne pepper for the lowest to the medium levels. The spice levels rise on the Scoville scale from there with the "Hot" level getting its heat from habanero peppers. The fourth level, called "HellaHot," features ghost and scorpion peppers.

The final stage is called the "HH Invitational." That comes with all the previous peppers and the Carolina Reaper, which Guinness World Records declared the hottest chili pepper on the planet in 2017. HellaHot's pinnacle spice level is paired with a challenge too—hungry daredevils can sign a waiver and attempt to down two chicken tenders doused in this pepper medley within 10 minutes.

I didn't hear about the competition until later, but I ate the invitational tenders anyway.

The tenders are brick-red with a thick dusting of chili powders. The pungent burn hit my nostrils seconds before they landed on my table. I'm impatient but I've watched enough Hot Ones to know I shouldn't use my bare fingers to grab one, in case I touch my face later. I stabbed one lurid tender with a fork before I took my first bite.

• Photos Courtesy Of HellaHot
• BIRDS OF A FEATHER From left, HellaHot owners Tony Antillon, Jeremy Alerta, and Joe Alerta started the restaurant out of a mutual love for hot chicken and cryptocurrency.

A slow build. I got a major hit of pepper, and it was pleasant for a few minutes. The floral heat slightly numbed my tongue but never went to the back of my throat like I feared. The spice mix tingled enough to make me want to take another bite.

But I could sense my downfall quickly. Chicken tenders trap heat for an annoyingly long time. The high temperature of the freshly fried hot chicken burnt my tongue repeatedly and accentuated the spiciness. I waited 10 minutes for it to cool off and nursed my tongue with water and HellaHot's cheesy parsley-dusted mac 'n' cheese.

Still, I enjoyed the flavor. HellaHot delivers on its name, but spice isn't the only profile. You can relish your chicken whether you're racing against the clock to win the challenge or if you picked a spice level just for fun.

"We use a different flour and breading system. We try to incorporate potato starch, which is used in Korean-style dishes. Nashville's more savory, but we throw in a little more brown sugar," Alerta said.

Winning the HH Invitational means going home with a one-of-a-kind NFT. Those patrons can return to HellaHot, show their NFT, and get 20 percent off their whole order and a free drink every time. The digital tokens are available to purchase too.

"It's a good incentive to have, especially for college kids. NFT is a digital asset that can be tracked on a blockchain, [which] if I have to dumb it down is like the iCloud," Alerta said. "We have a 1,000 pieces that we created and none can be replicated. We ended up doing 10 rare ones on top of the 1,000 that are Cal Poly-related."

Basically, NFTs are virtual assets that link ownership to unique physical or digital things like works of art, real estate, or in this case, hot chicken. The 1,000 NFTs HellaHot created look like chicken characters, created by a 3D artist in Poland. These NFTs are collectively called the Chicken Coop, and each bird has its own appearance, personality type, and even clothes.

HellaHot NFT holders can trade or sell their tokens too. Alerta said that his team wanted to incorporate NFTs into the business because of their cryptocurrency background. In fact, most of HellaHot's funding is crypto-based. Alerta hopes their NFT use will act as a customer loyalty program of sorts.

"We've sold 10 or 15 NFTs. We gave out 100 on the grand opening and have given out another 30 or 40 during the spice challenge. We're hoping that as we grow, the demand of NFTs gets up," he said.

• Image Courtesy Of HellaHot
• FLYING THE COOP Belonging to a collection called the Chicken Coop, 10 special Cal Poly-themed NFTs (non-fungible tokens) along with 1,000 other unique bird-style digital tokens can be used at HellaHot for discounts.

Until then, HellaHot will continue to dish out tenders, hot chicken sliders, and sandwiches with cooling coleslaw, zingy fries, a mélange of house-made sauces like the special "HellaSauce," and sweets like chocolatey fried Oreos and strawberry lemonade. HellaHot can be found at the Downtown SLO Farmers' Market every Thursday too, doling out the crowd-favorite mac 'n' cheese.

Alerta said expanding to Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, and even out of state is on his mind, but he wants to keep his street-style business local for as long as possible and cater to SLO.

"The funny thing when we were trying to dial in, we were like, 'Can white people handle the spice?'" he recalled. "It was always in the back of our heads. There are some who come in and ask for the hottest one! For the most part, there's balance." Δ

Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal is a glutton for punishment. Tempt her at [email protected].