Restaurant Brands International last Thursday became the latest group to outline a massive growth agenda. In this case, the Burger King, Popeyes, Firehouse Subs, and Tim Hortons owner shared it would reach 40,000 restaurants, $60 billion in systemwide sales, and $3.2 billion in adjusted operating income by 2028. That suggests average annual same-store sales growth of 3 percent-plus, over 5 percent net unit growth, and systemwide sales expansion north of 8 percent.

It promises a wider quick-service world that, simply, is going to have a lot more quick-service restaurants in it. McDonald’s guided 50,000 by 2027. Starbucks 55,000 shops come 2030. Domino’s also sees 50,000 long-term. Chipotle plans to essentially double to 7,000. And Yum! Brands, which just opened more restaurants in a calendar year than any restaurant company on record, expects to cross 60,000 outlets in 2024.

Among the growth levers awaiting RBI is the potential of Popeyes, a brand it acquired in March 2017 for $1.8 billion. At the time, the deal was significant for RBI because it secured the Burger King and Tim Hortons owner a serious stake in chicken, which remains one of the hottest growth arenas in foodservice.

The company said Thursday Popeyes projects to grow its U.S. and Canada base from nearly 3,400 stores in 2023 to more than 4,200 by 2028, or net growth of some 800 venues.

Popeyes is now in nearly 40 markets globally (RBI plans to open 7,000 international units total between now and 2028). Tim Hortons and Popeyes international have hiked systemwide sales over 50 percent over the past two years to a combined $1.5 billion.

Popeyes today is responsible for about 10 percent of RBI’s adjusted operating income. Seven years post acquisition (from 2016 to 2023), its global systemwide sales climbed from $3.3 billion to $6.8 billion. Adjusted EBITDA lifted from $90 million to roughly $280 million, and the brand’s global footprint climbed about 70 percent. Popeyes exited the year with 3,051 U.S. stores and 1,177 international.

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RBI CEO Josh Kobza said Thursday Popeyes has emerged as the No. 2 chicken quick-serve in America. According to the most recent QSR 50, Popeyes, by unit count, was indeed just behind KFC.  

“A key driver of this success is the quality of our product offerings and the resonance of the brand,” he said. “Our culinary team, led by chef Amy [Alarcon] has a proven track record developing and launching amazing, high-quality products like our chicken sandwich, which completely reset the quality bar across the industry.”

The chicken sandwich also helped drive a more than 25 percent increase in average-unit volumes for the system. More recently, the brand made wings a permanent feature with five flavors— Honey BBQ, Roasted Garlic Parmesan, Signature Hot, Ghost Pepper, and Sweet ‘N Spicy. It gave them away on DoorDash during Super Bowl weekend with a $15 purchase.

Kobza said Popeyes, thanks to the innovation, is already the No. 3 player in quick-service restaurant wings. It also spread the word with its first Big Game commercial featuring Ken Jeong trying the wings.

“Popeyes is in the quick-service restaurant business. However, our food is anything but rushed or transactional,” Kobza said, mentioning the brand’s prep process. Popeyes’ bone-in chicken comes in fresh to restaurants, never frozen. It’s marinated 12 hours or more in-store, hand-battered, hand-breaded, tossed in flour 20 times, and fried for 12 minutes. Chicken only sits for 30 minutes in Popeyes’ “birdcage.” So any time a guest eats a piece of bone-in chicken from Popeyes, the longest time it’s rested is half an hour.

The playbook is the emphasis behind Popeyes’ marketing tagline of “We Don’t Make Sense, We Make Chicken.”

“We’ve seen clear benefits of illustrating Popeyes’ quality differentiation to guests, including favorable movements in our brand perceptions,” Kobza said. “We know guests taste the quality difference when they taste our food and we’re finding increasingly effective ways to communicate what make our brand and our product special.”

He added Popeyes is working to streamline some of its procedures and pay closer mind to how easy it is to work in locations.

It’s a directive that’s been in the mix. Brand president Sami Siddqui unveiled a multi-year plan earlier in 2023 designed to increase average four-wall profitability to $300,000 by the end of 2025. That’s the bones of “Easy to Love,” a movement Siddiqui shared at the chain’s annual franchise convention in Phoenix in front of 600 participants.

Siddiqui told QSR in September it’s a threefold blueprint—make Popeyes Easy to Love for guests; Easy to Love for team members; and Easy to Love for franchisees. “If we can get that done,” he said, “that’s success in my mind.” Over a stretch of roughly six months, Popeyes’ team traveled to international markets. For instance, Siddiqui and now-COO Jourdan Daleo went to Spain and saw what a market starting from scratch looked like. What was the blank canvass of Popeyes, and how could that help the U.S.?

Kobza said that, while each piece was important, the biggest unlock will be kitchen design. Popeyes spent two years working with franchisees and visiting newer and international markets (like the Spain trip) to observe best practices in the hopes of developing an “easier-to-run” setup. This introduces new tech and equipment. Regarding the latter, Popeyes is adding automated batter makers that convert what was a labor-intensive and somewhat inconsistent operation, Kobza said, into an almost fully automated product, “perfect every time.”

It flows together with a new, modular production line that centralizes fulfillment of every order in one place. “This means our team members are spending less time prepping, cooking, and walking station-to-station,” Kobza said. “Unlocking more time to serve our guests.”

With tech, Popeyes is introducing digital drop charts to take the guess work out of production. These allow restaurants to know how much food to cook, when to cook, etc., which can then make employees’ lives easier and save on food costs. Also, Popeyes invested in sticky label printers to help boost order accuracy.

“Everything the team is doing is supported by more efficient labor management and hands-on training to get the most out of our easy-to-run kitchen,” Kobza said.

While early days, he said results have shown accuracy, speed, and satisfaction improvements “all accomplished through an upgrade that can take as little as one night to implement,” Kobza said.

He added RBI would work closely with operators this year to expand “easy to run” across more clusters of restaurants that will then set Popeyes up for a broader rollout later.

There’s opportunity as well with Popeyes, Kobza continued, to further improve the brand’s digital and delivery experience. The brand’s digital sales mix is presently more than 25 percent, with digital guests spending over 2X more than non-digital ones. “Popeyes is one of the fastest-growing freestanding drive-thru concepts in North America, opening nearly 200 restaurants annually over the past three years,” Kobza said. “We’re doing this with strong franchisees, allowing only top operators to grow in our system. As we look ahead, we see no reason for this engine to slow, especially as franchisee profitability continues to improve toward our goal of $300,000 by 2025.”

Popeyes, as RBI shared during its Q4 update, increased this metric 17 percent year-over-year in 2023 from $210,000 to $245,000. The brand’s U.S.’s same-store sales grew 5.8 percent in Q4 and 4.8 percent in 2023.