In seven years, Dave’s Hot Chicken has gone from a parking lot experiment to a booming fast-casual brand, with over 200 locations and no signs of slowing down.
The fast casual opened a net of 60 stores in 2022 and a net of 73 stores in 2023.
The rapidly growing Nashville-style chicken chain has a humble yet inspiring origin story that began in East Hollywood. The brand was founded by three childhood friends who, facing cultural expectations and financial pressures, decided to leap into the restaurant industry with a limited budget and a passion for perfecting their recipes.
For seven months, the founders operated out of a parking lot, saving enough money to open their first brick-and-mortar location. With a $100,000 infusion from one of the founders’ brothers, Dave’s officially transitioned from a pop-up to a full-fledged restaurant and transferred their loyal customers to the new location.
When it comes to the company’s swift rise, president Jim Bitticks points to one simple truth: he believes the food is undeniably good. The quality of the chicken has driven the brand’s rapid expansion and has captured the attention of customers and franchisees alike.
“I walked into Dave’s Hot Chicken, it was in the middle of the pandemic, and there was a line outside,” Bitticks said during a fireside chat at the QSR Evolution Conference in September. The restaurant was closed, but there was a line of people waiting outside and they had like two tables with just orders and orders and orders.”
What struck Bitticks was the stark contrast between Dave’s and other concepts he’d worked with, including Blaze Pizza, where a polished corporate strategy emphasized sustainable packaging and clean ingredients. In contrast, the chicken chain offers a more raw and unfiltered experience. Bitticks remembered opening a plastic bag with four styrofoam containers and steamy food. It was messy, real, and delicious, he said.
Despite the lack of corporate polish, Dave’s authenticity resonates deeply with customers and franchisees. The founders never followed a traditional business plan. Instead, they relied on the power of their product. The chain’s inspiration was In-N-Out meets Howlin’ Rays, a Los Angeles-based Nashville hot chicken concept. Bitticks said the founders didn’t care about being politically correct or doing the “cool things.” The only thing that mattered was producing good food.
This approach has fueled the chain’s expansion. The reliability and bold flavor—combined with a simple, targeted menu—have attracted franchisees in new markets across the country.
“I saw the original deck for the concept behind Blaze. And it’s sort of like a business school proposal,” Bitticks said. “We’re going to make this and we’re going to do this and we’re going do this. The founders of Dave’s sat around getting high and said, ‘What if we started our own restaurant?’ I made that joke once in front of them and [one of the founders said] that’s literally what happened.”
As Dave’s continues its rapid expansion, the brand’s cost-effective approach to opening new locations has played a key role in its success. While the brand’s pop-up roots started with just $900, its first brick-and-mortar location was opened for a modest $120,000. It was a second-generation restaurant, and the founders bought everything used. They had one rule for picking a location—it had to have a hood. If it had a hood, it was a good site.
This scrappy mindset continues to shape the brand’s growth today. Most Dave’s outlets open for around $600,000, a figure Bitticks describes as “exceptional” in today’s post-pandemic, inflation-impacted economy.
READ MORE: The Sizzling Rise of Dave’s Hot Chicken
Bitticks himself is not only the president of Dave’s but also a franchisee, which offers him a unique perspective on the brand’s operations. When he took the job, he made a deal with CEO Bill Phelps to become an operator too. His first location opened in the Inland Empire region of California after converting an old Arby’s for around $900,000. The experience of being a franchisee has significantly impacted how Bitticks views his role.
“I’ve had a couple of people say, ‘Isn’t that a conflict of interest?'” Bitticks said. “Actually it’s a confluence of interest if you think about it because now when we’re about to roll something out, I’m thinking, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ There are things that you think twice about or you really consider because not only is it going to affect me personally or my group directly, but I got to stand up in front of this group of franchisees and answer for it.”
Bitticks also noted how being in the trenches as a franchisee has deepened his understanding of costs and operational challenges. He recalled a recent project in which his group transformed a former Wahoo’s Fish Taco location into a Dave’s for just $650,000. “I told my team, ‘I want to do this one like the founders did—scrappy,’” he said.
This mindset of keeping things simple extends to product development as well. Bitticks shared the story of how Dave’s introduced milkshakes and made a deliberate choice to avoid costly and complicated equipment. The chain went with the Taylor 60 machine, which is a more basic version. When Dave’s wanted to enhance the shake program, instead of blending in Oreos, the company introduced a “top-loaded shake,” saving franchisees from having to purchase expensive blenders and electrical upgrades. The result? It doubled milkshake revenue and the franchisees were ecstatic.
The company’s philosophy has paid off. With an average post-royalty and ad fund margin of 19 percent, franchisees have been eager to reinvest in the brand.
“Franchisees open a restaurant, they can’t believe how good it is, and then they want to open the second one,” Bitticks noted. “We have so many franchisees re-upping for more territory. My group just did the same.”
Part of the reason for this eagerness lies in Dave’s solid economic model, which boasts a two-year payback period. “We pay very close attention to that,” Bitticks said, citing a consistent return on investment of between 1.9 to 2.1 years for franchisees. This quick payback period has helped fuel the brand’s rapid growth, with franchisees confident in their ability to turn a profit and expand.
On the guest side, Dave’s has equally prioritized customer satisfaction. “Our ops team is very focused on guest metrics and what guests say about us on social ratings and review sites like Yelp and Google,” Bitticks said. “We respond to every single guest—whether it’s a good review or a bad review.”
To maintain high standards across its growing number of locations, Dave’s has implemented video mystery shoppers through a partnership with Reality Based Group. These video mystery shops, conducted twice a month, give franchisees valuable insights into their operations. “What I feel like that does is it empowers the franchisee to know what’s going on in the restaurant,” Bitticks said.
Looking to the future, Dave’s plans to stick to its winning formula.
“We try to maintain a fairly high standard of food quality and guest service to make sure that it’s this loop that feeds itself,” Bitticks said. “You can keep growing because the profitability’s there, the franchisees have interest, but the business continues to excel from a sales perspective because the food quality is there and the service is there. And it’s just this self-sustaining model.”
