One of the most profound lessons Laura Garrett learned from her grandfather, George W. Church, is opportunity is everywhere if you’re looking for it. Before founding Church’s Texas Chicken in 1952, he owned a hatchery and sold incubators and chickens to local restaurants. After noticing customers grabbing food from a restaurant’s back window, he had an idea: a grab-and-go chicken concept.
That idea guided his next step. Church embarked on a road trip across the country, stopping at chicken restaurants from San Antonio to Florida. He noticed the quality wasn’t consistent, and that made an impression. What if he could deliver great flavor, great quality, and great service every time?
Nearly 75 years later, Church’s has become a staple in 22 countries, with 1,400 locations and another 900 projected in the next decade. The brand is integrating new technology, including AI, to drive operational excellence, better understand customer needs, and deliver value in a price-sensitive, hypercompetitive market.
MORE: 100 Days In, Church’s CEO Roland Gonzalez Has a Story to Tell
But her grandfather never got to see how big the chain would become. Garrett says while he envisioned a string of stores across the U.S., expanding globally never crossed his mind. He ran the first location and opened four with his son, Bob Church, who would lead the brand until 1962 after his father’s passing.
From there, Garrett’s uncle took over, bringing Church’s to the next level through franchising. The company would change hands multiple times afterward, continuing to evolve and expand. While not all these changes yielded results, Garrett says the brand’s cult following remained dedicated.
“Even when my family left the business, the customers were loyal,” Garrett says. “They kept coming to the stores because they loved the taste of the chicken. It’s all about flavor, quality, and value. There are a lot of chicken chains out there now, but these three things have remained the same over the years—and that’s what sets us apart.”
While Garrett remembers her father working hard to scale Church’s, she mostly stayed out of the chicken business. She recalls him handing the company over to her uncle and then moving to Hawaii for a year to live on the beach and paint. During her teenage years, her connection to Church’s was mostly about store visits with friends and family.
“I’d go up to the store, sign for a box of chicken, and take it to the lake with my friends,” Garrett says. “I never thought about cooking chicken or working in the offices … I wanted to forge my own path.”
It wasn’t until the company’s 70th anniversary in 2022 Garrett returned to Church’s as a brand storyteller and family archivist. The Historical Society in San Antonio partnered with a promotional team to share the chain’s history, and Garrett contributed scrapbooks filled with family photos documenting its early days.
“I’m not a businesswoman—I’m retired,” Garrett says. “But when the city of San Antonio held a plaque dedication on the wall where the first store stood and spoke about the impact my family had on the local community, it made me tear up. I never thought about it that way, and I was bursting with pride.”
With the announcement of Roland Gonzalez taking the reins as CEO of Church’s, with plans to usher in the next era of growth, Garrett finds herself reflecting on what the next chapter of the brand’s heritage will be. She visited Church’s headquarters in Atlanta in June, connecting with Gonzalez to discuss the brand’s enduring legacy and her grandfather’s original vision.
“If I could sit down with my grandfather, I’d ask him, ‘Why?’ He was 65 years old when he started this business and on the verge of retiring,” Garrett says. “I think I know the answer: He did it for us … for the legacy he wanted to leave for his family. To show that it’s never too late to start a new dream.”
