🍟 3/26/2024 – Dave’s Hot Chicken is Growing 🚀

FROM THE WOLF DEN

1. First Podcast Season of 2024 in the Books 🤝

The last episode of season 1 2024 (season 8 all time) is officially out!

What started with an interview of the family that owns 78 McDonald’s, ended with an AMA episode where I answered questions such as:

  • Can you negotiate a franchise agreement?
  • How can you buy a Chick-Fil-A?
  • Who will win the Nashville Chicken wars?
  • What are the best back office solutions for new franchisees (hint: there’s a sneak peak of what is being launched soon at Krokit in that answer)

This season also featured episodes to give a variety of franchising insights including:

Hope you all enjoyed, and I’ll be back at it with some killer episodes at the end of April!

2. Dave’s Hot Chicken Unit Growth 👀

Dave’s Hot Chicken new FDD came out last week, and while they don’t share any financials (🫤), we got a look into the unit growth data for this high flying fried chicken franchise. 

In total, they grew from 96 to 169 units open. With 73 units opened in the calendar year, they averaged 1.4 locations opened per week in 2023.

73 units also means that they were able to open ~85% of the restaurants they had “in development” at the start of the year.

While there’s no concrete industry wide data set, I can say confidently from looking at hundreds of FDDs, that the majority of brands that have dozens or hundreds of units sold  / in development, do not open 85% of them (it is typically a much slower pace).

Dave’s Hot Chicken expects to open 100+ more units this year, as they are clearly cementing themselves as the leader in the nashville hot chicken craze.

3. Multi-Unit Franchise Conference Wraps Up

The multi-unit franchise conference in Vegas has wrapped up, and my fellow twitter anon QSR guy gave a good recap from the floor:

🔥 Chicken franchises are hot (shocker). 

🔥 Pickleball is hot (with portfolio company Ace Pickleball leading the charge of course 😉)

🔥 The pet space is still hot, with dog boarding concepts coming into focus

And of course, people are always on the lookout for the next big thing, a recurring theme that never dies down. 

Any fellow Wolf Pack members go this year? If so, hit reply and let me know what you thought of the conference!

EXTRA SAUCE 

Why Do People Love Trader Joe’s?
I wrote a thread on the strategies used by Trader Joe’s that has garnered them a cult-following. It’s 4 simple tactics (note: simple, not easy) that any brick & mortar entrepreneur can employ in their business!

POS Developer Qu Finds Kiosk Comeback in Restaurants

A new survey from software developer Qu shows fast-casual and quick-service restaurant brands are interested in kiosks. 44% of respondents that represented 179 brands and over 62k locations said kiosks were an ordering platform of interest.

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