Hard to believe Q1 is coming to a close. It's a good moment to reflect on what your 2024 goals you set over New Years. If you're way off from accomplishing them, there's no rules that say you can't recalibrate them based on what's feasible!
For today's newsletter, I recap the first season of my podcast that finished today, share data from the new Dave's Hot Chicken FDD, as well as recap insights from the Multi-Unit Franchise Conference that just wrapped up!
A co-hosted convo with ~franchise friends~ JT and Dru
Hope you all enjoyed, and Iāll be back at it with some killer episodes at the end of April!
2. Daveās Hot Chicken Unit Growth š
Daveās Hot Chicken new FDD came out last week, and while they donāt share any financials (š«¤), 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 āin developmentā at the start of the year.
While thereās 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).
Daveās 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 Recap
The multi-unit franchise conference in Vegas has wrapped up, and my fellow twitter anon QSRguy gave a good recap from the floor:
š„ Chicken franchises are hot (shocker).
š„ Pickleball is hot (with portfolio company Ace Pickleball leading the charge of course š)
š„ 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 Joeās? I wrote a thread on the strategies used by Trader Joeās that has garnered them a cult-following. Itās 4 simple tactics (note: simple, not easy) that any brick & mortar entrepreneur can employ in their business!
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.