Wingstop has been on a tear that few in the restaurant industry can match, yet CEO Michael Skipworth still thinks “we’re the largest brand no one has heard of.”
Don’t expect that moniker to stick much longer.
In 2024, the fast casual earned its 21st straight year of positive same-store sales, with U.S. comps up 19.9 percent, primarily fueled by double-digit transaction growth. Same-store sales increased 38 percent on a two-year stack. The brand also opened a record 349 net new restaurants—15.8 percent unit growth year-over-year—and lifted systemwide sales by 36.8 percent to $4.8 billion. The chain finished 2024 with 2,154 U.S. restaurants and 359 internationally.
Adjusted EBITDA increased 44.8 percent to $212 million. Wingstop also saw increased frequency from its digital customers, the first time that’s happened under Skipworth’s 10 years at the brand.
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In the fourth quarter, Wingstop saw comps rise 10.1 percent, mostly driven by transactions. Digital sales mix increased to 70.3 percent and adjusted EBITDA grew 44 percent to $56.3 million.
“The industry backdrop that we were operating in, a lot of brands took too much price and the consumer grew frustrated with that,” Skipworth said during Wingstop’s Q4 earnings call. “And that put us in a position to win an outside share in the marketplace and something we took advantage of and we’re excited about … QSR is promoting value heavily as a way to reverse their transaction trends. But we remain confident that the consumer is going to continue to be selective and prioritize quality and value, which are both tenets of the Wingstop brand.”
Skipworth said Wingstop’s underlying health as a business is as strong as it’s ever been. He also feels like the fast casual is just getting warmed up.
Last year’s performance will be hard to compete with in 2025, but Wingstop is making strategic investments to sustain the high-performing business for the long term and boost AUV from $2.1 million to $3 million.
One key investment is a proprietary AI-enabled kitchen platform designed to significantly speed up order preparation and fulfillment. The innovation was co-developed and built specifically for Wingstop. Also, because it’s a modest upfront investment, the technology doesn’t prevent Wingstop from maintaining the returns of 70 percent plus that franchisees have become used to. A systemwide rollout is coming soon.
“And it isn’t just digitization of a kitchen ticket and order workflow, but it’s really leveraging visual cues and gamification to engage the team member,” Skipworth said. “And we see this as a really exciting opportunity to speed up the competency and role for new team members. It also provides role clarity. And ultimately, we think it’s going to increase the productivity of our team members.”
But Skipworth wants to be clear—this innovation isn’t because of a throughput issue. Over 10 percent of the system is already above the $3 million AUV target, and there are several operating north of $4 million. It’s more about Wingstop capturing its fair share of the market and encouraging more guests to include Wingstop in their consideration set.
“And so this is pretty exciting for us, and we’re going to be able to not only increase speed, but be more consistent,” Skipworth said. “And we believe it’s going to make Wingstop more of the consideration set. It’s going to unlock some unmet demand. And we believe over time it’s going to help us continue to increase frequency, which we know will be a big driver as we continue to scale AUVs towards 3 million.”
Another key factor is Wingstop’s proprietary tech stack MyWingstop, which launched in 2024. In the same year, the brand’s digital database surpassed 50 million, nearly 30 percent growth year-over-year. So far, thanks to MyWingstop, the chain has seen notable impacts around new guest acquisition with a record pace of registrations, higher frequency, and improved ROIs on its hyper-personalization strategies. Skipworth said customers are now experiencing “relevant, personalized, and optimized content.” In fact, digital satisfaction scores increased 6 percent year-over-year in 2024 and frequency among heavy QSR users jumped more than 20 percent.
Over the past two quarters, more customers have opted into notifications and registered with the platform. Skipworth said the additional data will help the brand fine-tune its guest profiles to engage in a way that “personally resonates with them, creating a more meaningful and engaging experience, which we feel is a competitive advantage for Wingstop.”
The encouraging part for Wingstop—and worrisome for competitors—is there’s room for even more success. Brand awareness increased by a low single-digit percentage in the past two years, but the gap remains at more than 20 percent versus more mature concepts. That means a lot of opportunities to bring more households into the fold.
With systemwide sales approaching $5 billion annually, the brand now has an ad fund budget with great scale. Wingstop will continue to show up in meaningful ways (activations at the NBA All-Star Game and expanded presence around the NFL, WWE, and UFC) and push for an always-on marketing strategy.
“As I reflect back over the last couple years, Wingstop has transformed into a brand with scale, creating greater capacity to invest behind our strategies,” Skipworth said. “While the consumer is facing tough choices when it comes to restaurant occasions, they also are recognizing the quality and value proposition Wingstop delivers.”
Wingstop projects low- to mid-single-digit domestic same store sales growth in 2025, which would be significant considering it will lap 2024’s 21.6 percent, 28.7 percent, 20.9 percent, and 10.1 percent.
But the chicken chain is up for the challenge.
“We are setting this business up for the long term. And we’re running it in a way that actually gives us confidence in being able to continue to deliver on growth year in and year out,” Skipworth said. “And I really think it hits on—and I think an important point—just the underlying strength of our business. While we might not be delivering the comps that are north of 20 percent again, the overall fundamentals of our business are really strong.”
