Flavor Flav opens fried chicken restaurant in Iowa

Look out, Colonel Sanders. Flavor Flav has a fried chicken restaurant, and he's coming for you - starting in a small Iowa city.

The Public Enemy rapper and reality TV star opened Flav's Fried Chicken in Clinton, Iowa, on Monday with a business partner he met through a connection in Las Vegas, the Clinton Herald reported.

"My chicken ain't no joke. I ain't scared to go up against the Colonel, tastewise," Flav said, referring to chicken giant KFC, in a YouTube video of him frying chicken at Monday's opening.

The sight of Flav cooking at his own restaurant apparently won't be a one-time thing. He told the newspaper he intends to work at the Clinton location now and then to help draw customers. (Good news for the fledgling operation: If his trademark attire is any indication, he should have no trouble arriving to work on time.)

"You're going to find me in here working. … You're going to catch me in here seasoning up my chicken, flouring up my chicken, frying up my chicken. And not only that, but coming out here and serving my chicken to people," he said.

The idea for the venture came after Flav befriended Las Vegas restaurateur Peter Cimino. Flav cooked Cimino some chicken, and Cimino, duly impressed, had Flav sell his chicken wings at Mama Cimino's Pizza in Las Vegas, the rapper told northern Illinois news site SaukValley.com.

It was Cimino's brother, Clinton restaurateur Nick Cimino, who suggested he and Flav open a fried chicken restaurant in the Iowa city of roughly 26,000 people.

"He said, 'You know what, Flav? … What I want to do, I want to build you your first restaurant.' I'm like, 'Are you serious?' He's like, 'Yo, I’m dead serious, man. I’m going to go home, I'm going to build your first FFC restaurant,'" he told SaukValley.com.

Nick Cimino bought a building next to his own restaurant and got it ready for Monday’s opening, the Clinton Herald reported last week.

Flav, a 51-year-old New York native, told the newspaper he's developed his own special fried chicken recipe over the years, having grown up in a family that owned a diner and having attended cooking school in the late 1970s.

His chicken has "that deep down southern fried chicken" taste, and also has "some crisp going on up in there," he said.

"The taste … will blow up your taste buds, man," Flav told the Clinton Herald in an interview posted on YouTube.

Flav, who starred in the VH1 reality series "The Surreal Life" and "Flavor of Love," said he'll consider opening more FFCs after getting this one under way.