lmao yuppie. have you seen the staff who work there? or the customers? not a yuppie place.
the owner didn't ripoff any recipe. the chef was working in Nashville, fell in love with the chicken, and decided to open up one in LA. are people not allowed to make food from a city they're not from? i guess only people from philly can open a philly cheesesteak place.
and he's friends with the hot chicken people in Nashville to this day. he visits them often. he's had the owners of Prince's or Bolton's visit Howlin Rays. when that tornado devastated Nashville a few months, he went there to help them rebuild. nobody has been more respectful of the food culture he's inspired by than him
also, ignoring everything else, Howlin Rays' chicken is simply fantastic. it's the juiciest and most flavorful chicken around. that's inarguable. that's literally what everyone says. it's simply much better fried chicken than those places you listed