In 2003, a small restaurant opened on College Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas called Slim Chickens. Greg Smart and Ryan Hodson, the co-owners and founders, had bought a building that had formerly been a sushi restaurant, and turned it into an eatery that focuses on serving fresh, never frozen chicken tenders and fresh sides. The purple and yellow building doesn’t exactly match their new brick and glass design on their 12 other locations, but it does show the humble beginnings of one of America’s fastest growing restaurant chains.
The restaurateurs saw enough growth after just 2 years to open a second location in Rogers, Arkansas. Smart and Hodson originally planned for Slim Chickens to be a regional brand, and had no idea how popular their chicken would become, or how fast their business would grow.
The idea of Slim Chickens started the same way that most great ideas start: In a garage full of beer. “Basically, our so-called ‘focus groups’ were beer drinking parties,” said Greg Smart in an interview with the Fayetteville Flyer. “We started with a turkey fryer and a bunch of friends trying out recipes.” These focus group meetings with friends were where Smart and Hodson developed their dipping sauce recipes and breading ingredients. After some trial and error, they decided it was time to move forward with opening their first restaurant.
Sales were slow at first. Hoping that their food would speak for itself, the men focused more on perfecting their food and customer experience, and hoped that word of mouth would bring in new business. It was a risky move, but it started to pay off, slowly at first. “Sales were slow as molasses,” Smart said. “But the light at the end of the tunnel was, they were going up about 5 percent every month. We were so focused on customer service that people kept coming back, and word of mouth started to spread.” The company turned its first profit after 18 months, and since then, has not slowed down. In fact, the Slim Chickens brand is spreading like a wildfire.
The second location was a real learning experience for Smart and Hodson. “We found out real quick that with multiple locations, you can make double the money, or lost twice as much twice as fast.” Smart said in an interview with the Fayetteville Flyer earlier this year. Despite the struggle to get the second location up and running, it ended up being a massive success for Smart and Hodson, and legitimized not only the restaurant, but also the viability of the Slim Chickens brand. In 2008, the duo opened their first store outside of northwest Arkansas on Salem Road in Conway, which was followed in quick succession by a location in Jonesboro, and three more stores in Oklahoma.
It should come as no surprise that one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the nation serves exclusively chicken, and is based out of Arkansas. For over 4 decades now, the average American’s chicken consumption has grown every year. In 1965, the average American ate 33.7 pounds of chicken a year. By 2013, that number had doubled to 83.1 pounds of chicken per year. America’s love of all things that cluck has certainly been beneficial to the Natural State. Arkansas is one of the nation’s leaders in poultry production. The obvious reason for that is that Tyson Foods, the world’s largest poultry producer, is based in northwest Arkansas as well. According to the Poultry Federation, Arkansas was the only state ranked in the top 10 in all 3 categories of poultry production (broiler, turkey, and egg) in 2013. Arkansas is 2nd in chicken production behind Georgia, and could actually overtake the Peach State before 2016. To make a long story short, America absolutely loves chicken. And Slims isn’t the only restaurant to take notice of the trend, either.
The fastest growing restaurant chain nationwide in 2013 was Chik-Fil-A. KFC is still a dominant chain across the world. Yum Brands, Inc., which owns KFC, has opened a new chicken restaurant in Texas called Super Chix that focuses on chicken tenders and sandwiches, a move that is designed to combat the growing popularity of Chik-Fil-A. Both of these chains may be in for a fight they weren’t expecting from the now franchised and rapidly expanding Slim Chickens.
The first franchise location of Slim Chickens was opened by long time employee Rob Byford in Little Rock in early 2013. South Arkansas businessman Greg McKay opened a new location in Texarkana shortly after the Little Rock location. Since then, franchises have opened in Hot Springs and the University of Arkansas campus, along with a second location in Little Rock. This year, the company has hired veteran restaurant executive Sam Rothschild to take marketing and expansion in a much higher and faster direction than was every anticipated. Not long after signing with Slims, Rothschild locked down multi-unit deals in Texas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska, with even more deals on the table, soon to be finalized. The response to Slim Chickens’ product across the south and Midwest has been nothing short of amazing. “We’ve seen over the last few years the rise of the better burger segment,” Smart said, referring to chains like Five Guys, Smash Burgers, and others. “We feel that the better chicken segment will be the next wave.”
With the upcoming expansions and success, Slim Chickens has decided to lay out their strategy over the next ten years, with the hopes of attracting more investors and franchise owners: By 2025, they want 600 locations. Their 14th location just opened on Wedington Avenue in Fayetteville in June. Much like their revenue growth in that old purple and yellow building, the growth of Slim Chickens started off slow, and has since snowballed downhill at a rapid pace. The Slim Chickens restaurant on West Markham Street in Little Rock posted $404,794 of sales in the first 3 months of 2014 alone. The success of Slim Chickens was most recently on the front page of Reddit, after lifestyle site Thrillist.com mapped the most influential and successful fast food chains for all 50 states. Slim Chickens was named Arkansas’ best native fast food chain.
Arkansas is at the forefront of poultry sciences, so it’s fitting that our biggest fast food chain since TCBY is at the forefront of delicious poultry innovations. The state has embraced Slims, and they have embraced the state right back. “Fayetteville has been good to us.” Smart said. “I don’t see us going anywhere.” The company solidified that sentiment by opening a new 10,000 square foot facility in Fayetteville last year, permanently setting up shop in their home state. No matter how fast they grow or where they set up a franchise, the executives at Slim Chickens will never forget where they were Made: in Arkansas.
See the map of fast food chains here!
http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/behind-red-white-food
Made In Arkansas 