We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ahmad Kilani. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ahmad below.

Ahmad , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Clutch City Cluckers name came from Houston, a city I like to consider home. The food truck was part of my mission to give back to Houston, the city where gave my career a major boost. Hence, the “Clutch City” name is inspired by the Houston Rockets. The “Cluckers” is from our main entrees: chickens!

Ahmad , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Ahmad Kilani and I’m the founder of Clutch City Cluckers. We specialize in in Nashville-inspired Hot Chicken Sandwiches, Cheese Topped Hot Chicken Sandwiches, Chicken Tenders, and more. Our core values are the 3 C’s: Care, Compassion and Customer Orientation. Our goal is to keep your taste buds on your toes. We bring the heat or stay cool with various of spice levels from no spice to #CLUCKITLIKEITSHOT!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

There are two areas that I feel helped us build our reputation within the market.

The first is having a quality product. In order to be successful, we needed to develop delicious recipes that we knew people would love. After much research & testing, we feel that we’ve developed an amazing menu with lots of ways to enjoy our hot chicken spice flavors. We are always developing new ideas and love to provide our guests with lots of options to choose from.

Another area that helped us with growth is our attention to marketing. Having experience previously opening other businesses, I understood the importance of generating brand awareness. So, I designed our food truck to stand out, with an Instagrammable exterior featuring neon lights, a selfie station, and artificial turf spread out in front of the truck. Dining at Clutch City Cluckers is not only about the tasty chicken, it’s about the experience of going to the restaurant. I then supported the growth of the concept by investing in high-quality content creation and digital marketing.

Our guests love our food and the dining experience, which has been the ultimate contributor to our success. Since our opening in February 2021, we have opened five locations in Houston, one in San Antonio, and our first brick-and-mortar in Amman, Jordan.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I am a native of Irbid, Jordan that immigrated to The United States in 2015 to continue my education and obtain a Masters Degree. While attending school as a full-time student, I worked at Houston’s first Halal food truck, Abu Omar Halal. It is here that I began to shape my vision and career in the food industry.

After school, I opened a few of my own Abu Omar Halal locations, which was an exciting business adventure, but a challenging one. In 2016, one of my trucks was unexpectedly vandalized by a fire. Another incident was an accident that led me to lose one of my trucks. I’ve faced many challenges but I was able to prevail over time.

I am now using my experience and knowledge of the food industry to bring Nashville’s Hot Chicken to Texas with Clutch City Cluckers. The food truck is part of my mission to give back to Houston, the city which gave my career a major boost. And my hopes for the future are to franchise the concept & expand throughout the US and abroad. We’ll represent Houston all over the world!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.clutchcitycluckers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutchcitycluckers/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClutchCityCluckers/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClutchCityCluck?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Image Credits
Christian Pena