Slim Chickens looks to keep growing
Fayetteville-based Slim Chickens saw a record year for store openings in 2023 and has plans to open even more in 2024.
Slim Chickens is projecting opening one or two locations a week in 2024, across the U.S. and overseas and says it has more than 1,200 development deals in various stages of completion.
The fast-casual chain opened 53 locations in 2023, the company said recently, and its projecting openings in excess of 70 this year.
“We keep growing our franchise base and they keep opening locations,” Sam Rothschild, Slim Chickens’ chief operations officer, explained in a recent interview. “You open a restaurant a year and you’ll see these sort of numbers.”
Slim Chickens was founded in 2003 and is privately owned. It competes in the fast-casual segment, where restaurants provide a slightly more formal dining experience compared with fast-food operations. While fast-casual restaurants don’t have a wait staff, servers generally carry food to tables.
In a blog post this month, the National Restaurant Association’s Chief Economist Bruce Grindy said despite pressures on consumers — including higher prices and persistent inflation — employment is staying strong and employed people tend to be willing to spend money. He notes that based on data the association measures on pent-up demand, folks are likely to continue to go to restaurants in the coming months, “as long as they have the financial wherewithal to do so.”
He notes that in a survey taken the the latter part of January, 43% of adults said they are not going out to restaurants as often as they would like, a figure on par with surveys taken in previous months. At the same time 34% of adults said they’re not ordering takeout or delivery as often as they’d like, also a similar result to findings of the last several surveys.
Today, Slim Chickens has 258 locations worldwide, including 207 locations in the United States, with 10 of those company owned. The chain has restaurants in 36 states and opened its first stores in Nevada, Indiana, and Wisconsin, Idaho and Arizona in 2023. It has 51 overseas restaurants, the vast majority in the United Kingdom but it also has a location in Turkey,
in the airport in Istanbul.
Slim Chickens’ Rothschild said supply chain snags that slowed the availability of vital restaurant gear in 2022 have sorted themselves out but added it still is taking longer to get locations built. There have been a variety of challenges, he said, from longer permitting times to lack of construction workers. He said time to get an operation open has gone from about 12 months prepandemic to more like 18 months today but despite that, Slim’s is opening stores at record pace.
Rothschild said Slim Chickens’ business model, which includes its extensive line of original, house-made dipping sauces, allows it to offer new items and tastes to its customers with relative ease. He noted the company added some new flavors to its dipping sauce offerings last year with plans to introduce more in 2024. He said Slim Chickens’ mac and cheese remains wildly popular with customers and its offering more types of chicken sandwiches as well.
Also in 2023, the company moved into a new headquarters in Fayetteville at 234 E. Millsap Road. The four-story building is about 35,700 square feet and had an estimated sale price of $6.4 million according to county records. Northwest Mutual Financial Network will remain on the ground floor while the top three floors will be Slim Chickens office space. The new location will house about 50 of Slim Chickens’ office staff but will have room for more employees and to host franchisees.
Mike Phillips, a man with 27 years of experience in the franchise sphere, just last week opened his first Slim Chickens, inside the Northwest Arkansas National Airport in Highfill.
He said the new spot is the first U.S. airport restaurant for Slim Chickens, noting it will allow economies of scale for his Einstein Bros. Bagel location, also sited in the airport. He said the airport Slim Chickens location provides much needed food options for travelers.
“We like the brand, and the products,” he said.
Phillips, a native of Northwest Arkansas, said he was familiar with and been a fan of the Slim Chickens brand when he reached out to become a franchisee. Phillips and his business partner, Aaron Nickell, own and operate seven Tropical Smoothie and four Einstein Bros. Bagel locations. He said Slim Chickens fits well with his other franchise operations.
“The three brands are in the same space, but they don’t compete directly with each other,” Phillips explained.
Rothschild said the location at XNA has been open just a few days and he’s already getting solid feedback about the location. He said he’s received calls and emails from customers saying how much they like seeing Slim Chickens in the airport as they board a flight or return home from a business trip or vacation.
“Talk about hometown pride,” Rothschild said.