Insight
Brands should only franchise to established multi-unit operator groups
“That's actually a much better idea is you only franchise to groups with multiple other stores. That are running really good operations where this is exactly what they do, where when you give them the store and the training manuals and everything, they're going…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2029
Dave's Hot Chicken expects to open 900 sold locations within five years
“Maybe like four, four or five years, four years.”
Insight
Oganesyan: Restaurant operational excellence requires fast throughput on long lines
“What shows like a true quality of a restaurant is having a long line, but getting through it really fast, because that means you have, besides having a lot of customers, you have really good operations. You're able to get all these customers, their food, In, i…”
Insight
Oganesyan: Scalable franchise concepts cannot require franchisees to bake fresh bread
“If we're going to be a franchise concept, you know, you can't ask your franchisee to make their own bread.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dave's Hot Chicken launched its original pop-up without operating permits
“Me and Dave were like, oh, we should apply for like all of our like paperwork before we get started. And then Tommy was like, he's like, we're not going to get paperwork. He's like, nobody's going to use paperwork to open up on a street. He's like, we either d…”
Insight
Oganesyan: Major press before operations are ready harms a business
“We knew as much as a Farley article would help us, if it came at the wrong time where we weren't ready for it and we got an influx of customers and we couldn't serve them, then it was actually going to be detrimental to us and not help us.”
Opinion
Oganesyan: Los Angeles turned hot chicken into a nationwide trend after Nashville
“And I think Los Angeles not only played a big role in Dave's hot chicken, but hot chicken in general. Because if you think about it, the second place that hot chicken really came after Nashville was Los Angeles. And Los Angeles is kind of what helped it really…”
Insight
Oganesyan: Scaling restaurants is almost impossible without experienced partners
“The amount of, like, overhead you need, the training, the Scaling. It's almost impossible to do, I think, if you haven't done it before or have people with you that have done it before. It can be really easy to mess it up.”
Disclosure
Oganesyan faked a 'no line' post to pack the restaurant for investors
“On social media, if we ever posted that we didn't have a line, we'd get like hundreds of people coming in because we always had a line. So I fake posted that we didn't have a line just because I wanted to be extra packed up. So when they came in, there was lik…”
Disclosure
Celebrity investors helped convince large multi-unit operators to buy franchises
“I think what it really helps with this franchise sales, right? Because as you're going after these really big franchise groups that own hundreds of stores, you know, they don't want to take a risk on a one store or two store concept, you know, as popular as th…”
Disclosure
Oganesyan: Dave's Hot Chicken has sold roughly 900 franchise commitments
“I think 900.”
Disclosure
Dave's Hot Chicken was built from day one specifically for franchising
“We wanted it to be a franchise, and we wanted it to be this thing, and we were trying to develop it From the ground up as a foundational restaurant to be very franchisable, yet maintain very high quality.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dave's signature brine was discovered accidentally in a Vlasic pickle jar
“And then obviously we added a little bit more recipes to the to the pickle juice, but the pickle juice eventually became our brine. And it was like accidental discovery.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dave's Hot Chicken founders launched their original pop-up with a $900 budget
“I had like a few hundred bucks that I had saved up. Dave's like, well, I'm getting my paycheck in like a day or two, and he was going to quit anyway. So he's like, I'll have like a few hundred bucks. And then Tom's like, okay, I'll cover whatever's left, you k…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Oganesyan: Dave's Hot Chicken pop-up generated thousands of dollars daily
“We're doing like a few thousand a day.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Founders paid themselves $10,000 each in their second month of operations
“The second month was the first month that we actually paid ourselves. And at the end of the month, we had each made like, I think it was like 10 or 11 in cash.”
Insight
Founders should prefer 10% of a cow over 100% of a grape
“No, you know, what's funny is we had this understanding of like, you would rather own, let's say, 10% of a cow than 100% of a grape. So, you know, you would rather own 25% of a store than 33% of a pop-up. So, to us, it wasn't how much, what was the percentage …”
Disclosure
Founders took zero upfront cash in their 2019 investment deal
“Yeah, but we earned no upfront cash. No, no. We just, the money we raised kind of just went to you know, hiring, you know, operations people and, you know, our head of sales and.”
Assertion Supported
Oganesyan: Dave's Hot Chicken has reached approximately 200 open locations
“And now we're like, 200.”
Insight
Oganesyan: High-end prep-heavy restaurants have very small profit margins
“Especially the types of restaurants that he was working in, the profit margins were probably very small. Because of the types, you know, the type of prep that went into it and the quality of food that went into it.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Dave's Hot Chicken logo originated from a swap meet rubber chicken
“So we bought that chicken and obviously that's eventually what ended up becoming our logo was that rubber chicken.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Founders hid nightly cash in styrofoam to-go containers to prevent robbery
“What we do is we put our cash away in like a styrofoam container, like one of our to-go containers. At the end of the night, we take that home with us.”
Disclosure
Founders acquired the Los Angeles territory and own 11 franchise stores
“So we kind of bought the territory of, like, Los Angeles, and with the founders, we own, like, I think, 11 stores now.”
