What do you get when you mix breakfast with dinner? For restaurateur Brian Foxworth Jr., the answer was chicken and waffles. Which, not coincidentally, is the name of his new eatery, Rhythm Chicken and Waffles at 1136 Garnet Ave.
Rhythm Chicken and Waffles began as a food truck at Big O Tires on Garnet. The brick-and-mortar spot, with a walk-up window, opened Memorial Day weekend, it’s now a thriving and expanding franchise.
“We actually started out with a food truck in June 2018 serving churros and ice cream,” said Foxworth. “It was doing well, but you have to sell a lot of ice cream to make a profit.”
It’s a family business with his mom (her recipes) and dad, a well-known San Diego DJ, and others as partners. It was Foxworth Sr. who gets credit for coming up with the idea of blending chicken with waffles.
“He went to Vegas and Los Angeles where they had something similar and saw they were getting a big response with chicken and waffles separate,” said Foxworth Jr. “We decided to put it in a sandwich with bacon and cheese. So we turned a waffle into a chicken waffle sandwich with a fried egg on top.”
A winning combination?
It’s the contrast, said Foxworth.
“Most everything that’s good is sweet and salty,” he said. “The waffle is just a sweeter bread with squares in it, and we just put the chicken in between with the bacon and cheese and it turns into a big deal.”
Rhythm sells chicken and waffle plates separately as well in his retail space, which was formerly a walk-up restaurant serving Argentine cuisine. 
Rhythm’s menu also includes burgers, chicken sandwiches, loaded chicken fries, fries with fried chicken on top and whatever sauce you prefer, and chicken tenders. 
Foxworth intends to expand in the future, intending to open a second location somewhere in PB. 
Explaining how rhythm got in the name, Foxworth said, “It’s a music theme. My family was big into music. My dad was a DJ, I’m a music producer. “We want to create that good vibe while you’re enjoying your meal. At the new location, when we get that going, it will be ’90s to today’s music, like a time capsule when you walk into the place.”
During his opening weekend, Foxworth said a power outage forced him to serve more than 500 customers over the weekend with just one toaster. “It was crazy,” he said. “Now we have six waffle cookers going at one time and we can get stuff out quickly.”
Rhythm delivers using Grubhub and plans to soon begin pick-up service. There is outdoor seating on the side of the eatery with barstools.
Foxworth said he presently is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Some of his weekend business involves the hungry bar crowd, Foxworth said. 
“You have to come down and see why we’re getting the response we’re getting now,” concluded Foxworth. Rhythm’s Chicken & Waffles
1136 Garnet Ave.
619-452-8118
rhythmanddesserts.com