by Michelle Boudin

Mad Dash Kitchen, which started as a ghost kitchen before moving into The Market at 7th Street, will soon leave its stall at the restaurant incubator for a new location in the heart of Uptown.

“We were always planning to move and grow and have the opportunity to serve more customers, and I’ve always had faith that it was going to happen,” Jones says.

Mad Dash, which will remain open until the end of February in its current Market at 7th Street space, is known for their fried chicken sandwich. Soon, Jones will be serving the beloved sandwich and an expanded menu when he makes the move to the space in the alley between RiRa’s and the Truist building.  

“We’re gourmet street food but definitely known for our Dasher chicken sandwich,” Jones says. “It’s a buttermilk fried crispy chicken thigh with homemade pickles and coleslaw and our signature house Dash sauce with a brioche bun. The bun holds up and it’s all made with love.”

Jones, the restaurant’s chef and owner, launched Mad Dash in 2020, about a decade after he first moved to the Queen City to attend Johnson & Wales University. The way he found the school, and ultimately his adopted hometown, is one of his favorite stories to tell. 

Growing up in Anchorage, Alaska, Jones says he always knew he would head to the mainland after high school. When he was just a sophomore, he won a culinary skills competition that meant a trip to Charlotte to compete on a bigger scale. He won, and the prize was a small scholarship to Johnson & Wales. The following year he won a recipe contest that landed him back at Johnson & Wales and convinced him to attend college there.

“I fell in love with the campus and the city,” he says — so much so that he decided to stay put even after his 2012 graduation.

He went back for a master’s degree, which he says has helped him navigate the challenges of owning his own restaurant.

“It’s stressful,” he says of the hospitality field. “The costs are slowly going up within the industry and staffing is always hard and the expectation of higher wages can be daunting as a small independent owner. It’s just me — there’s no restaurant group backing me.”

Still, he’s excited about the move to the bigger space and what that will mean for growing his business.

He’s adding wraps, a blackened fish sandwich, and more vegetarian options while keeping in mind that most of his customers are looking for grab and go.

“We’ll be able to offer breakfast,” he says. ” “It will still be fast casual with more sandwich options – both cold and hot — and soups too. We’ll have a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do with the brand but not been able to do because of the space that I currently have.”

The new 1,600 square foot space will be double the size of his current 7^th Street stall, but Jones says he’s ready.

“It’s scary but I’m a man of faith and this whole journey has been a testimony of faith.”