When Elevating Cane’s lately opened its first-ever location in Meridian, Idaho, it wasn’t a very outstanding occasion for the restaurant chain. The fast-growing rooster purveyor additionally opened six different eating places in 5 different states on the very same day in November. It goals to open near 100 new shops this yr.
However some Idahoans had been keen to face exterior in chilly fall climate for greater than 48 hours to be the primary within the state to get a style of Elevating Cane’s, whose exceptionally slender menu options rooster fingers, french fries, a secret proprietary dipping sauce, and easy sides like garlic toast and coleslaw.
“We had clients tenting out since Sunday morning,” AJ Kumaran, co-chief government officer and chief working officer of Elevating Cane’s, tells Quick Firm of the brand new Idaho restaurant that opened on a Tuesday. “Individuals are enthusiastic about our entry into that market.”
A growth in a cooling restaurant economic system
At a time when restaurant chains together with Chipotle, Cava, and Sweetgreen are confronting a gross sales cooldown as Gen Z and millennial diners are pressured by inflation, excessive housing prices, flat earnings progress, and different broader macroeconomic challenges, chicken-focused restaurant chains like Elevating Cane’s and Dave’s Sizzling Hen have been constantly increasing throughout the U.S. and are posting sturdier gross sales and visitors progress.
The fastest-growing chain in America final yr by unit rely was Hangry Joe’s Sizzling Hen & Wings, according to data provider Datassential, which additionally reported the home unit complete for all rooster restaurant ideas elevated by 4.7% in 2024 from the prior yr, far exceeding the business’s improve of 1.5%. Systemwide gross sales for rooster eating places now exceed $52 billion yearly.
Whole restaurant visitors for all quick-service restaurant ideas dropped 1% for the year-ending September 2025 from the comparable prior-year interval, whereas that very same metric elevated 3% for the rooster ideas, David Portalatin, senior vp and a meals and foodservice business advisor for Circana, advised Quick Firm. The market researcher says that visitors for the QSR restaurant business, which was battered by shutdowns in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, remains to be down 8% from 2019, however has elevated 15% for QSR rooster.
The chains defying fast-food slowdown tendencies
“We’re obsessive about fried rooster,” says Portalatin. He believes that extra modern twists on rooster prep and distinctive sauces have put a extra trendy twist on basic, Americana staples. Hen, Portalatin provides, “is among the many only a few shiny spots in progress areas throughout the restaurant panorama.”
Since Elevating Cane’s opened its first location in Louisiana in 1996, the chain has solely offered rooster fingers and cooks each dish contemporary to order, which Kumaran says leads to environment friendly eating places which are centered on making just some menu objects. There are not any warmth lamps or microwave ovens within the chain’s kitchens—and no limited-time menu gives or reductions.
“We don’t take shortcuts and we don’t play any gimmicks,” says Kumaran. “You’ll not see us in low cost mode or saying, ‘Right here’s the flavour of the month.’”
Over the previous decade, Elevating Cane’s has grown from a $350 million enterprise to $5.1 billion in system gross sales in 2024. The corporate says it’s marching towards $10 billion in annual gross sales from greater than 1,600 places, which might be a rise of round 600 eating places from what’s in operation right this moment. Earlier this yr, Elevating Cane’s leapfrogged KFC to turn into the third most-popular chicken chain within the U.S. after Chick-fil-A and Popeyes. The chain even has a nickname for its most devoted followers, the “Caniacs.”
That recognition has led to some elevated competitors from different chains exterior of the rooster specialists which have added the protein to their menus. “There are lots of people leaping in,” says Kumaran. “Whether or not it’s taco gamers or fajita gamers or burger gamers, all people’s bought a rooster dinner possibility proper now.”
The brand new competitors crowding the rooster class
Hen’s hovering progress has been attributed to some yearslong tendencies like Chick-fil-A’s aggressive enlargement past that chain’s preliminary regional focus within the south, the “sandwich chicken wars” that kicked off in 2019 when Popeyes debuted a brand new menu merchandise that led to a social media and in-store frenzy, and the more moderen notion that every one protein—even fried rooster—is best than different quick-service meals choices.
“Whether or not that’s true or not, I’m not, I’m not being the decide of that,” says Portalatin. “I’m not a dietitian or nutritionist, however the shopper will typically understand the rooster possibility because the better-for-you possibility.”
How the ‘protein halo’ reshaped fast-food preferences
Hen’s protein halo is especially related to customers who’re taking GLP-1 weight-loss medication like Ozempic, and that connection led Dave’s Sizzling Hen earlier this yr to debut a promotional meal referred to as the “Davezempic,” that includes mini sliders. “It provides influencers and clients a technique to interact with the model in a humorous and quirky manner,” says Srishti Handa, vp of marketing at Dave’s.
Based in 2017, Dave’s Sizzling Hen lately sold a majority stake for a reported $1 billion to non-public fairness agency Roark Capital and ended 2024 with 260 places. The chain expects to have 400 places in operation by the top of this yr and has signaled it expects to open greater than 125 eating places yearly for the foreseeable future.
When requested a few north star goal, Dave’s President and COO Jim Bitticks advised Quick Firm the chain may “simply help” 1,000 home places. “Speak to me in 15 years and that quantity may very well be 2,000 or 3,000 eating places,” provides Bitticks.
The chain serves its Nashville-style rooster tenders and sliders at seven completely different spice ranges starting from “no spice” to “the reaper,” the latter requiring a signed waiver promising that sure, it’s that sizzling. “I don’t suggest it, however you already know, you’ve bought to strive all the things as soon as,” says Bitticks. “It positively blows your head off.”
Bitticks says that Instagram and different social channels have been an enormous driver of visitors when Dave’s establishes eating places in new markets, particularly attracting Gen Z to the idea. “I’m not from that technology, I don’t get the thought of following a model that I’ve by no means tried earlier than,” he added. “I don’t perceive it, however it’s a big piece of Dave’s story.”
Slim Chickens bets on selection, content material, and sauce innovation
Slim Chickens, an Arkansas-based chain with 300 places throughout 34 states, has a extra expansive menu than its peer upstarts with tenders, wings, salads, wraps, and even rooster and waffles. The chain says that it’s alluring Gen Z customers and even Technology Alpha, kids born after 2010 who’re asking their mother and father to take them to a Slim.
“Selection is a aggressive benefit for us,” Patrick Noone, chief advertising and marketing officer of Slim Chickens, stated in an interview.
To face out in a crowded class, Slim has created an in-house recording studio in order that the chain can pump out a gradual drumbeat of content material throughout social channels. Noone says that these artistic belongings have a brief shelf life on-line, shedding their relevance after simply 10 days. Slim can also be within the technique of creating and debuting a brand new cellular app within the first quarter of 2026. The chain can also be persevering with to assume by way of the bodily restaurant house to make it simpler for patrons who place a cellular order and need to choose up their meals within the retailer.
However Noone says one prime precedence will at all times be innovation for Slim’s vary of sauces, which right this moment contains 14 completely different flavors like Korean BBQ, candy pink chili, and cayenne ranch.
“We spend as a lot time innovating round sauces as we do on tenders and the middle of the plate,” says Noone. “Hen is simply the proper canvas.”
