A new hot chicken experience is coming to Dallas: The Cookshack, a fast-casual concept that premiered in Fort Worth in 2019, will open a location at 5456 E. Mockingbird Ln. in the former BurgerFi space.

Cookshack is a concept from two veterans of Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen: Mark Rogers, who is also the son of Cheddar's founder, and chef Stephen Payne.

Spokesperson Jason Sessions confirmed that construction on the location began in June and said that the restaurant would open in late 2023.

The restaurant does hot chicken in a variety of heat levels, in dishes that include chicken tenders, chicken & waffles, and a chicken sandwich. A basic order is $7 for 2 tenders, choice of side, and a slice of bread.

They use a dry rub on the chicken, and offer a choice of six sauces that include ranch, sweet heat, BBQ, buffalo, and Cookshack sauce, IE thousand island.

"We want to be 'Texas' hot chicken, not Nashville, because it is different," Rogers says.

Their hottest level has three peppers (scorpion, ghost, and Carolina reaper) and is called "AMF," which Rogers says is a spinoff of a ski run in Aspen. The ski run is called "Adios Mother-____". They've made AMF into the more family-friendly "Adios My Friend." This is in keeping with the tradition with these places where the hottest heat level always has to have some kind of cutesy gimmick.

Sides include mac & cheese, coleslaw, French fries, sweet potato fries, spicy "Dragon" French fries and "Texas caviar," aka black-eyed pea salad with corn, tomato, and bell pepper.

In addition to fried chicken, they serve smoked ribs, which you can get solo or in a chicken-rib combo.

They're particularly proud of their salads including one with chicken, avocado, dates, almonds, goat cheese, tomatoes, and corn; and a chicken kale salad with peanuts, tomatoes, cabbage, mint, cilantro, and parmesan cheese.

Their signature dessert is called Aunt Peggy's ice cream sandwich, one of those super-thick ice cream sandwiches made with oatmeal cookies and vanilla ice cream. The recipe is from Payne's aunt.

They also serve fresh lemonade, beer, wine, and margaritas, either frozen, on the rocks, or swirls.

Since their Fort Worth debut, they've opened locations in College Station, Houston, Katy, McAllen, San Antonio, Spring, and Webster.

But they'd always had Dallas on their radar, and were just waiting for the right location in a high-traffic area. BurgerFi, which opened in 2018, closed during the pandemic. It's centrally located near Mockingbird Station, US-75, and SMU, in the Mockingbird Central center at the corner of McMillan Avenue.

"It just so happened that the first location we could find was Fort Worth, bu it was always a race as to which would open first, Dallas or Fort Worth," Rogers says.