Flavor Flav is getting out of the fried chicken business – and a potato salad is to blame. The Public Enemy MC has pulled out of a planned restaurant chain, citing mismanagement and the expiration date of his eatery's side-dishes.
"Let me be straight up with you," Flav told TMZ. On 2 April, he visited the flagship Flav's Fried Chicken, which opened in Clinton, Iowa in January. "I found potato salad that expired on 28 February," he explained, "and it's then when I realised I can't do business [there] and I really hope no one ate those potatoes."
The restaurant is now closing, with Flav pulling his name from the franchise. "I have to do whatever is possible for me to save my name and that's to shut the business down," he told Iowa network WQAD. "[Manager] Nick Cimino isn't running the business right."
Cimino has called Flav a "fraud", insisting the restaurant was his idea. "[He] wants to become a millionaire off my dime, off my ideas," he said. "I started this. I put together everything from the menu to the colour of the building to the sign." But Cimino's management may have been part of the problem: he was recently investigated after employees' pay cheques bounced. "A lot of employees that weren't getting paid," Flav said. Cimino, who stood to collect 40% of profits, said it was a "credit card glitch".
Last week, despite the imminent failure of his chicken shack, Flav announced a new restaurant venture in Las Vegas. Flavor Flav's House of Flavor will reportedly open there on 30 May. "I came up with the idea and now he wants to run without me?" Cimino said. "That's fine ... I'm just glad I'm free of somebody like Flavor Flav."
