Dave's Hot Chicken: 12 Facts About The Fast-Growing Chain Restaurant
If you haven't heard of Dave's Hot Chicken, consider yourself in the minority. What started as an entrepreneurial venture among four friends has seemingly overnight grown into an enterprise rivaling the likes of KFC, Popeyes, and Chick-fil-A. The Nashville-style hot chicken chain is taking over the country. Big or small, there's seemingly no market where Dave's Hot Chicken isn't popping up. Sure, it has multiple locations in major cities like Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, and Los Angeles. But you will also find restaurants in off-the-beaten-path towns such as Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin; Schererville, Indiana; Meridian, Idaho; and Clackamas, Oregon.
So, what is so special about this fried-chicken chain? A lot, as it turns out. From the humble beginnings of Dave's Hot Chicken in a California parking lot and its impressive list of famous investors to its recent international expansion and offbeat national advertising campaign, here are 12 facts you need to know about what one research firm dubbed the fastest-growing restaurant chain in the U.S.
Dave's Hot Chicken started in a parking lot
Like many businesses before it, Dave's Hot Chicken had humble beginnings. So humble, in fact, that the restaurant didn't even have a roof over its head when it first opened.
Let's go back to the start. The year was 2017. Four friends with a passion for food — chef Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan, and brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan — pooled together $900 to set up a tiny food stand in an otherwise unmemorable East Hollywood parking lot. Equipped with little more than a fryer, a talented chef, and a homemade spice recipe, the quartet began serving up batches of Nashville-style hot chicken to anyone who would stop by.
Their operation was simple, and so was their philosophy: Make the food the star. They made it a priority to source the highest-quality chicken they could find. The juicy, tender strips of meat were fried and then topped with one of Kopushyan's signature spice mixes. Word of this late-night chicken operation, and the incredible food it was churning out, quickly grew around Southern California. Before they knew it, customers were lined up around the block waiting to try some of Dave's Hot Chicken.
Dave's Hot Chicken quickly became a viral sensation
The legend of Dave's Hot Chicken didn't just spread by word of mouth. The chain credits much of its popularity, especially in its early days, to the power of social media. When Dave's was still operating out of a parking lot, co-founder Arman Oganesyan began promoting the business on Instagram. As the buzz increased, more diners flocked to East Hollywood. Eventually, major outlets were forced to sit up and take notice, which only brought even more attention. Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps told QSR Magazine that Oganesyan was "the best marketer he's ever worked with." It's especially high praise considering Phelps once worked in marketing for food giant Nestlé.
Dave's got a boost from its customers, too, many of whom uploaded videos of themselves trying the hot chicken. "When they bite into the food, I'm not even kidding, one of the guys' eyes rolled back in his head and he's like, 'Oh!' And there's all sorts of expletives, and 'They're like, oh sh**, that's so good,'" Dave's chief operating officer and president Jim Bitticks recalled for QSR Magazine about the first such video he watched.
The social media buzz surrounding Dave's Hot Chicken hasn't quieted down. Quite the opposite, in fact. As of the summer of 2022, the chicken chain has garnered more than 31 million views of user-generated content on TikTok and had the most Instagram followers per restaurant of any national fast food chain (via Restaurant News).
Dave trained under a world-renowned chef
While the food gets most of the spotlight at Dave's Hot Chicken, let's not forget about co-founder Dave Kopushyan. It is his chicken, after all. But who exactly is he? We're glad you asked. Kopushyanis the chain's culinary mastermind, a title he has the resume to support. According to The Press Democrat, Kopushyan attended culinary school at The Art Institute of California in Los Angeles, which has since closed. It was there that he became "known as a spice nerd," according to the chain's CEO, Bill Phelps. This love of seasoning would come in handy later on in Kopushyan's life.
But before he went into business for himself, Kopushyan had another stop to make on his path to success. And this wasn't any run-of-the-mill culinary gig. Instead, he went to go work for none other than Thomas Keller. For those not familiar, Keller is widely considered to be one of the best chefs in the world. He owns several restaurants throughout the country. The most notable of these is the iconic French Laundry, a three-Michelin star eatery in Yountville, California. Keller also founded the Bouchon brand of restaurants, which is where Kopushyan worked. Eventually, Kopushyan took his honed culinary skills and coupled them with his spice nerdiness to develop Dave's Hot Chicken. The rest is history.
The company's CEO has started fast-casual chains before
It's one thing to operate a parking-lot chicken stand. It's quite another to build a global business, which is precisely what the founders of Dave's Hot Chicken wanted. To accomplish this, they knew they needed help. They found it in the form of Bill Phelps.
Phelps came aboard as an investor in the company in 2019 and was simultaneously named CEO. He had all the necessary experience. In the 1990s, Phelps worked for the food manufacturing conglomerate Nestlé. During his time there, he and co-worker Rick Wetzel developed a business plan for their own pretzel chain. That company would become Wetzel's Pretzels. As CEO, Phelps grew the chain to 350 stores before leaving to join Dave's Hot Chicken.
Phelps was also among the investors in Blaze Pizza, which now boasts more than 300 locations itself. The CEO took the lessons he learned from these previous ventures and used them to help Dave's Hot Chicken grow at an unparalleled rate. "The benefit I have is I can look at the Blaze Pizza model," Phelps told Franchise Times. "It's about having the right team in place that knows how to grow and scale a business with great operations and discipline. It's also picking phenomenal franchisees. We take no mom-and-pops at Dave's. We take multi-unit fast food or fast casual operators that have opened and operated those kinds of restaurants in the market."
The chain has some famous investors
In case Dave's Hot Chicken wasn't popular enough on its own, it has a host of celebrity investors to help further boost its profile. In 2019, the chain secured a partnership with the investor group responsible for the rise of Blaze Pizza. The deal helped Dave's Hot Chicken grow in what was still its early days. But the move is probably best known for the list of famous faces it brought into the chain's ownership group.
The aforementioned investment group included Wetzel's Pretzels co-founder Bill Phelps, former California First Lady Maria Shriver, movie producer John Davis, and Tom Werner, chairman and part owner of the Boston Red Sox. "We fell in love with this business because of the food," Phelps told Nation's Restaurant News. "It's so good and so craveable. It looks like an absolutely killer concept that we believe has national potential." It didn't stop with those four, however. Other investors joining at that time included A-list actor Samuel L. Jackson and NFL star turned television host Michael Strahan.
Just when you thought the investing team's pedigree couldn't get any better — it did. In 2021, one of the most famous men on earth, a guy by the name of Drake, came on board with a minority stake in the chicken chain. "I tried the food, and it was amazing," the rapper said via Restaurant Business Online. "After meeting the founders and hearing their story, I jumped at the opportunity to invest."
Dave's Hot Chicken might be the fastest-growing restaurant chain ever
Dave's Hot Chicken entered 2021 with just seven brick-and-mortar locations. By the end of 2022, the chain boasted roughly 100 outposts across the world. This expanded footprint led to a massive growth at the register. Dave's Hot Chicken's reported its total sales volume grew 262% from 2020 to 2021.
The chicken restaurant's sky-rocketing success led foodservice research firm Technomic to label it the fastest-growing restaurant in America. QSR Magazine went one step further, suggesting Dave's Hot Chicken might be the fastest-growing franchise in the history of the restaurant industry.
As breakneck as the ride has been, don't for a second think that the company has any plans to slow things down. In May 2022, Dave's Hot Chicken reported that it had more than 700 restaurants in development. "To be here now, it's pretty incredible, but I think we also realize that we still have a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of stores to open," co-founder Arman Oganesyan told QSR Magazine. "We have a lot of franchisees. So right now our priority is making sure that our operations and the stores are running really well so franchises continue to want to open up stores. So we understand that we've done a lot, and we also understand there's still a lot to do. We're still in that work mode — continuously trying to improve the brand as much as we can."
Dave's Hot Chicken is international
In January 2021, Dave's Hot Chicken opened a location in Toronto. Not only was it the chain's first Canadian outpost, but it also marked the start of its now flourishing international expansion. About a year after debuting up north, Dave's Hot Chicken announced it had signed a franchise deal with restauranteur Walid Hajj to open more than 30 locations throughout the Middle East. This included stores in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
"This is a massive moment in the history of Dave's Hot Chicken," Dave's Hot Chicken CEO Bill Phelps said in a company news release. "Not only have we quickly established ourselves as the go-to for fast casual hot chicken in North America, but we'll now be bringing our craveable menu to markets in the Middle East. With an established franchise veteran like Walid Hajj leading the way, I'm confident about the success of the brand in this new region."
The first Middle East location opened in Dubai in September 2022. "The Arabian Gulf Shore region is a chicken market that lacks a quality chicken concept, and we'll bridge that gap with Dave's Hot Chicken," Hajj said in the release about the franchise deal. As of March 2023, Dave's Hot Chicken had six international locations up and running: three in Toronto, two in the United Arab Emirates, and one in Qatar.
Dave's Hot Chicken only serves chicken and only in tender form
Not all chicken chain menus are created equal. You can get salads at Chick-fil-A, fish sandwiches at Popeyes, and pot pies at KFC. But don't expect such menu variety at Dave's Hot Chicken. The fast-casual chain only serves chicken entrees. And you won't find any chicken wings or drums coming out of the kitchen. Only chicken tenders. Even the sliders at Dave's are chicken tenders served between two slices of bread.
In total, the menu consists of four combo meal options: two tenders, two sliders, one tender and one slider, and one slider. Dave's also has four sides to choose from: fries, cheese fries, mac and cheese, and kale slaw. The pared down list of offerings isn't due to any lack of imagination. Instead, it was a purposeful decision made by the chain's founders to ensure they are serving the best food possible. "The reason we do tenders only is ... so we can maintain a high quality food, while still having a high output level," co-founder Arman Oganesyan told Yahoo! Finance. "That way, we can kind of prep it and cook it as it's ordered ... not keep it under heat lamps and not have it be pre-made and that way, everybody's getting a fresh order as they come in."
Dave's offers seven levels of hot chicken
Now that we know about the eponymous chicken, let's talk about the adjective in the successful chain's name. Dave's Hot Chicken might only come in one chicken form, but there are a total of seven levels of heat to choose from: no spice, lite mild, mild, medium, hot, extra hot, and reaper.
If want to get a good idea of how well the chicken is cooked and prepared, or you absolutely abhor spice of any kind, go ahead and order the no spice chicken. Those looking for a bit of heat should skip ahead to medium. This is when Dave's Hot Chicken really begins to dial up the fieriness.
The chicken continues to get gradually hotter as you make your way thought the levels until reaching the end of the line: the reaper. Named after the Carolina Reaper, which holds the title of world's hottest chili, the reaper is Dave's hottest, spiciest chicken. Some diners have reported having to sign a waiver when ordering it that states, in part, "Due to its extremely hot nature, I acknowledge that eating Dave's Hot Chicken REAPER (the "REAPER") carries with it the potential for certain risks ... I acknowledge that eating the REAPER can cause me harm, including, but not limited to, bodily injury, property damage, emotional distress, or even death." Sounds delicious — sign us up!
Drake gave away free Dave's Hot Chicken to celebrate his birthday
Drake isn't just one of the owners of Dave's Hot Chicken. He's also a promoter. In October 2022, he put the chain in the spotlight with an act of generosity. To celebrate his 36th birthday, the rapper gave people what they wanted. No, not a new album — free chicken.
All hungry fans had to do was show up at any Dave's Hot Chicken location between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time and show the restaurant's staff that they follow the chain on either Instagram or TikTok. In exchange, customers would receive a chicken tender or slider free of charge.
The move was part of a larger publicity push as it coincided with the rollout of the chain's first national ad campaign (more on this later). "Our guests across the world have shown the same level of enthusiasm for this company that the founders had five years ago when they were operating a little pop up in Hollywood," Dave's Hot Chicken's CEO Bill Phelps said in a news release. "Now, in celebration of his birthday and our first national ad campaign, our most famous investor wanted to give something back to fans by letting everyone try Dave's Hot Chicken on him."
The chain's first ad campaign was comically dark
Dave's Hot Chicken is anything but traditional. So, when the chain launched its first national advertising campaign in the fall of 2022, it didn't stick to the script. Instead, the chicken chain leaned into the world of dark comedy in hopes of creating some memorable content.
The "Don't Die Before You Try It" campaign consisted of two 30-second commercials. In both, actors are seen talking to the camera, mourning the death of their fictional loved one and regretting how they had passed before being able to enjoy the chain's food. "No one loved hot chicken more than my friend Sam," one actor says in the ad on YouTube. "And this juicy, hot, spiced-to-order Dave's Hot Chicken would have been his favorite of all time, if it wasn't for his other passion: driving with his head out the sunroof."
"There's a reality of FOMO that runs deep in the Dave's brand," Matt Rogers, creative director of Party Land, the agency that devised the campaign, says via QSR Magazine. "People want to try it from what they've read or heard from their friends, and when they do, the word spreads further. We wanted to take this FOMO feeling and blow it out of the water. At Dave's they have a history of breaking the rules, so we had a lot of permission from them to go big. 'Don't Die Before You Try It' felt like the ultimate realization of where the brand started."
Usher publicly lost the reaper challenge
If you are wondering just how hot Dave's Hot Chicken reaper-level chicken is, you might want to ask Usher how he feels about it. The eight-time Grammy Award winner got bested by one of Dave's reaper chicken sliders, and the whole thing was captured on video and posted on his Instagram page, according to People Magazine.
In April 2022, the R&B singer was tasked by his children with eating the spicy-hot chicken as a punishment for being late picking them up. "For all the dads out there who showed up late or didn't meet whatever promise they made to their kids, this is the punishment," the father of four said.
At first, Usher seemed to enjoy the sandwich, saying it's "not bad." He was quickly singing another tune. After a few more bites, Usher began sweating, coughing, and, maybe in an attempt to distract himself from the pain, dancing. "I'm just dancing for no reason," he said. Ultimately, the singer could only down a bit of the sandwich before throwing in the towel.