Love Burn is South San Francisco’s spicy chicken hot spot

It worked great at first as they took advantage of third-party apps and the home delivery trend. In 2021, Love Burn was listed as one of Yelp’s “Top 50 places to eat in the Peninsula.” Unlike many businesses, Love Burn was able to thrive within the peak of the pandemic. The business truly wasn’t affected by COVID-19 until the end of San Mateo County’s shelter-in-place order. With the public feeling free to dine out after quarantining at home for months, third-party delivery rates plummeted. 

“Sales were down 40% in 2022,” said Jason Angeles, one of the five who knew one another through work at UPS or catering. The others are Christian Perez, Justin Isip, Ronnie Taylor and Dexter Lee. With a depletion in revenue, Angeles and his team began to use food trucks and catering to get their business out on the road. 

 For now, the business is hidden conspicuously inside South San Francisco’s Hometown Bowl.

 “When I created the business, it was to get into the genre of Nashville hot chicken, but not be that exactly,” Angeles said.

Before opening Love Burn, the team spent six months brainstorming, branding and taste testing before officially starting up in the kitchen of Hometown Bowl alongside a partnership with the artisan burger restaurant, Me So Hungry Too. The two distinct businesses share a kitchen inside the bowling alley, maximizing the ghost kitchen concept on delivery apps. 

Love Burn stands out from a typical hot chicken restaurant by offering fiery flavors created through a unique blend of spices from around the world. The menu includes a simple list of a chicken sandwich, leg and thigh, tender and wings to pair with their variety of spices. 

“Most of our staff are Asian American and Latino and we try to use our food as a representation of that,” Angeles said. 

The increasing spice levels from zero to four are creatively named after stages of dating. Their motto, “Get Burned By Love” encourages customers to test their heat tolerance. Level One: Crush, has mild heat from jalapenos and Sriracha. Level Four: One Night Stand, has heat that is so spicy a signed waiver is required.

“The chicken’s good and spicy. Not a lot of places have this kind of heat,” Ken Co, a regular customer with a high spice tolerance, said. “It’s different, it’s unique and it has a different spice than other folks have.” 

When it comes to spice, Love Burn packs on the heat. Angeles claims it offers one of the hottest fried chickens in the Bay Area and maybe in California. Its hottest spice level measures at 12 million Scoville heat units, surpassing the heat of the Carolina Reaper that measures at 2.2 million SHU. 

Despite a heat level this high, Love Burn originally did not require a waiver for its level four spice. It wasn’t until a one-star review from a customer on Yelp, describing a burning sensation so painful they almost went to the emergency room, that a waiver was added.

Although Love Burn is known for its heat, it also has a Level Zero: Just a Friend option with no spice for those who aren’t fanatics for heat. 

When visiting Love Burn, Angeles says the chicken sandwich is a must. His second recommendation are the wings at Level Three spice paired with hot ranch. This comes with a fair warning that even for those with a high spice tolerance, Level Three, which uses ghost peppers and Carolina Reapers, isn’t for the faint of heart.

Experience the heat of Love Burn’s hot chicken at 130 Northwood St. in South San Francisco inside Hometown Bowl. It is open Tuesday through Sunday and can be found on Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats. Visit loveburnchicken.com for more information.