One of the Bay Area’s best fried chicken restaurants opens a new location in Walnut Creek on Monday with spicy, sweat-inducing birds inspired by Nashville.

It’s the third location for World Famous Hotboys, which debuted as an Oakland pop-up in 2019 and quickly grew to permanent locations in Uptown and Sacramento. Owners Victor Ghaben and Berk Gibbs took over an old Mel’s Diner at 1394 N. Main St., transforming it into a rowdy, hip-hop-blasting restaurant full of primary colors, graffiti and video games.

The Walnut Creek location is the group’s biggest location yet, with 42 seats inside and 30 seats on a sunny patio. While the initial menu looks the same as the one served in Oakland, it’ll slowly expand thanks to a bigger kitchen with more equipment. Think breakfast sandwiches with house-made chicken sausage, fried chicken and waffles, and salads for a lighter option. Expect one-off specials and, the owners hope, pop-ups down the line.

The star will continue to be the sandwich ($13.50), with a hefty and crispy thigh spiced potentially to absurd levels. (The medium can be an intense ride — beginners are warned to start with mild.) Yelp ranked it the No. 1 fried chicken sandwich in California, and Ghaben thinks it stands out in a growing sea of Nashville-style hot chicken in the Bay Area. “It has enough of Nashville but isn’t trying to copy them,” he said.

Also on the menu are chicken tenders ($22.50), bone-in chicken by the quarter ($11) and crinkle-cut fries loaded with fried chicken and other toppings such as cheese sauce or collard greens ($13).

The funky, post-internet vibe has always been central to World Famous Hotboys. In Walnut Creek, the bar is lined with old televisions, where diners can play retro Super Mario Bros. while they wait for their sandwiches, and a large flat-screen shows cars spinning doughnuts in Oakland sideshow fashion.

But until now, the full experience hasn’t been on offer in the Bay Area. The Oakland location originally opened with a sushi bar-esque set-up, but it was so popular that it had to turn all available surfaces into prep areas for to-go orders.

“It was a bummer when we had to cut it off, but when you’re getting bombarded with two-hour waits, you have to do something or else people won’t come back,” Ghaben said.

The rapid rise of World Famous Hotboys shouldn’t be surprising given that Ghaben comes from a family of restaurateurs. He grew up in a Mexican restaurant, vacuuming the floor at age 6. The Mel’s Diner location was previously run by his cousins. Three generations of the Ghaben family are still running a mix of chain and independent restaurants in the East Bay, including Lafayette’s Batch & Brine and Walnut Creek’s buzzy new Lita.

“If you tallied up all of my family’s restaurants, I’m not sure how many there would be because every member of my family is in the restaurant industry somehow,” Ghaben said. “I think we’re just built for it.”

Hotboys isn’t slowing down, with its first out-of-state location in Indianapolis opening this spring as well. Ghaben said he wants to maintain quality and so doesn’t want to open too many locations, but expect at least a couple more in Northern California.

World Famous Hotboys. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. 1394 N. Main St., Walnut Creek. worldfamoushotboys.com

Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker