A Prince of a Person

There’s a point to this all, so bear with me.  It’s not about a favorite food, though it may seem so on the surface.
 
The tale does begin though with what has become a favorite food.  It’s known as “Nashville hot chicken” and has become very popular in Los Angeles, and apparently has been spreading through other parts of the country.  It began back in 1936 when Thornton Prince opened the BBQ Hot Chicken Shack (in Nashville, of course…), which later changed its name Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack in the 1980s.
 
I became a big fan of the food five years ago when Kim Prince (great-great niece of the original) opened her wonderful Hotville Chicken in South Central Los Angeles.  The inveterate Chris Dunn -- who introduced me to the place -- and I began frequent lunches there, and I wrote about Hotville four years ago here, if you want to know more about the place and its history.  Though that’s not the point here.
 
As great as their food is -- and it is great, in fact a “Best of L.A.” award--recipient from Los Angeles Magazine and making the Los Angeles Times 101 Best Restaurants list -- the owner/chef Kim Prince is even better.  She’d visit with the customers, and Chris and I have always loved our conversations with her, not a perfunctory "How's it going, how was your meal?," but stopping to talk, sitting down sometimes ​for 10-15 minutes. Full of kindness, not just for her customers, but her community, but even (actually) for her competitors.  She wants everyone to succeed, and puts actions to her words, a dynamo going out through the city relentlessly.  But that’s not the point here either – though it gets closer to it.
 
Because of COVID and the restaurant’s difficult location (though one Kim insisted on because of the community), Hotville Chicken unfortunately had to close down.  However, she teamed up with another pillar of the community, Greg Dulan of the legendary L.A. spot, Dulan’s Soul Food on Crenshaw – and the two created a successful food truck, Dulanville, which has relentlessly (of course) traveled throughout the city for the past several years.  And no, that too is not the point, but we’re getting close.
 
The point (and finally, we’re there…) is that last week, Kim Prince and Greg Dulan were on Jimmy Kimmel Live!  The reason is that he’s been featuring local chefs who have shown up in wildfire zones to feed people in need – and Kim and Greg, being who they are, are among those.
 
But it’s even more impressive than that.  To put it in perspective, when I sent an email to the Hotville account about how nice it was to see her on Kimmel’s show, she wrote back the following note, the details of which blew me away.  Though (being who she is), I wasn't surprised at that.  She wrote –

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. 

We sprang into action with less than 24 hrs notice to prepare the truck and get 400 meals to Altadena on Jan. 9th.  Since then we have been back out there 8 consecutive days.  We finally forced a break, because our bodies could barely take it.  Our pockets empty, and the truck had a small electrical issue that we are still troubleshooting.

5000 meals later:  The invoice with World Central Kitchen covers food cost only on a net 7-10day term.  However, of course we're front all of the costs along with additional expenses like labor, fuel, maintenance, etc. 

Anyway, we're preparing today for another 5 days distributing hot meals in Pasadena.  Families that have homes are able to return with limited access to power and gas if restored.  Many are still in search of temporary shelter/accommodations.  Schools due to resume by the end of the week.   Big Sighs, my friend.  Tears. Hugs.
We'll keep feeding the people.  It's what we must do.

Spread Kindness in 2025,
​
Chef Kim

​​Here’s the video of their appearance on the show –
​

​But it goes even further.
 
For all the financial hurdles they face with their efforts, the compensation they get from Jose Andrés’ great World Central Kitchen, as she noted, while substantive, only covers part of their expenses.  The rest they're paying out of pocket.  But when I asked about them doing a GoFundMe page, she said, no, they weren’t going to do that.   Instead, they are only asking people to “Pay it forward,” and order an extra “spare meal” when they show up at Dulan’s Soul Food restaurant on Crenshaw, which will be used to help those their feeding in the fire zones.  All well and good, but there’s only benefit with that from people who live in Los Angeles and are close enough to Dulan’s or to help at the fire zone .
 
That said, they are accepting donations through the CashApp or Zelle by using their email address of “[email protected]”.  However – being who they are – she wanted to make clear they aren’t even making any solicitations for donations.  Just that they’ll happily accept them from anyone who decides on their own to chip in. 
 
This is all the more notable since she off-handedly mentioned that, on top of the previously-noted electrical issues with their truck, the Dulan’s restaurant has also had some costly and very unexpected issues.  But ones that, in her way, she describes almost dismissively as “Such a distraction given all the work we must do for the community.”
 
What I wrote back was, although they themselves don’t do any solicitations for funding, I wasn't hindered by any such selfless standards or self-imposed restraints.  And so, I -- on my own -- am saying that if anyone here would like to donate anything to such noble people exhaustively helping others in great need, I have no doubt it would be appreciated by them.  Whatever the amount.  After all, a bunch of $5 donations add up.  All donations add up.
 
So, if you use CashApp (or download it) or have a Zelle account, you can donate to “[email protected]”.  

And if you live in Los Angeles and ever want to dine on the real thing yourself, check out her Facebook page here or her Instagram page to find out where the Dulanville food truck will be when their fire mission is done, and they’ve finally caught up on their sleep and are back on the road.  (Or take a look at her Hotville website.) It's not just standard food truck service, but occasionally they do pop-ups in conjunction with restaurants around town.  Speaking of which, for a sit-down meal, there's of course always Dulan’s Soul Food  on Crenshaw.  (I don't mean to give Greg Dulan short shrift here, it's just that I've crossed paths with Kim Prince a lot, and haven't yet met the good fellow.)
 
Okay, so now you know -- that’s the point.  Thanks for bearing with me…