1. Yardy Caribbean Restaurant & Rum Bar, 837 Lincoln St., 458-240-7564, YardyRumBar.com.

2. Hot Mama’s Wings, 420 W. 13th Ave., 541-653-9999, HotMammasWings.com.

3. Hot Honey, 207 Madison St., Instagram @hothoneyandco.

It’s not Yardy Rum Bar’s first rodeo winning Best Chicken Joint. They first won in 2022, placed second against Hot Mamas Wings in 2023 then won again in 2024.

“It’s cool,” Isaiah Martinez, chef and owner of Yardy, says. “A chicken joint? Why not.” While chicken plays a major part of the restaurant’s image, he says he views chicken as “this delicious comforting-thing that’s whatever.” 

He says he gets more excited about vegetables.

“I get more excited for perfectly cooked vegetables and really well done things that are harder to do,” he says. “But chicken is easy. So in my mind, I don’t get as impressed with myself or any of our items that are chicken because it’s like ‘we figured it out.’ We’re more focused on consistency and training then we are impressing people with chicken.”

Martinez says his goal is to impress people with vegetables. “Anyone… can impress me with a chicken dish. But you can impress me with vegetables,” he says. “The goal is to impress a person who doesn’t like vegetables with vegetables.”