Dave’s Hot Chicken Grows to 358 Units on Stronger Systems

By Marcus Bennett

Dave’s Hot Chicken added a net 120 locations last year, its largest expansion to date, bringing the chain to 358 restaurants.

Jim Bitticks joined as chief operating officer in July 2020, when Dave’s had four locations. He is now chief executive officer.

In a recent QSR Uncut conversation, he described a deliberate operating system rather than a wholesale reinvention: leaders should learn why the business works, protect its defining qualities, and support the people who built it.

That approach has real economic implications, but the interview offers few financial measures. Bitticks cited strong sales without disclosing comparable sales, average checks, gross margins, food costs, labor-cost percentages, or unit returns.

The 358-unit total also lacks the company-operated and franchised split and a market breakdown. Those gaps limit any outside test of whether the operating principles produce durable expansion.

What did Bitticks change first?

One early question was whether he would make Dave’s founders use tongs. The question suggested a prior operational change had arrived without enough understanding of what worked. Bitticks instead asked how the founders operated before directing them. The restaurants were generating strong sales at the time.

Bitticks acknowledged the limits of his prior experience. “I’ve never done what they’ve done at this point,” he said. His point was not that new leaders should withhold expertise. Leaders should bring prior experience, ask questions, and explain the reasons for necessary changes, because a directive risks dismissing the team whose work already produced sales.

At four units, that sequence matched the sales results Bitticks described. It does not prove the same restraint will work at 358 units. He offered no turnover rates, training completion rates, execution scores, or sales results tied to operating methods.

Which brand promises cannot yield to speed?

Bitticks spoke weekly to groups going through Dave’s brand training. He identified three elements as the foundation of the company’s success:

• Mind-blowing chicken
• Great service
• The brand’s distinctive vibe

He treated those elements as decision rules, not marketing copy, choosing good chicken served more slowly over subpar chicken served faster when speed and cost carried greater weight. That protects the core product, but Bitticks did not quantify the tradeoff between food costs and kitchen labor. He also did not describe menu pricing or how stores manage peak-hour volume under that standard.

He credited cofounder Arman Oganesyan with the principle that food worth returning for is also worth waiting for. The same standard extends to Dave’s hand-painted art and music. He treats those features as protected from cheaper replacements during scale. Protecting them requires repeated instruction, not one strategy meeting. The interview offers no cost comparison.

What systems made expansion possible?

Bitticks arrived after helping Blaze Pizza expand from two locations to roughly 370. That experience separated running restaurants from building systems that let other people run them. At Dave’s, he used relationships with former colleagues to establish that infrastructure, and several members of the Blaze team worked part time to help settle the new operation.

Juan Lopez, now Dave’s chief restaurant officer, and his team prepared the systems needed to begin training and opening stores in about three months. Experienced franchisees and vendors also invested in the smaller brand’s future. Bitticks called the quality of those operators the literal foundation of the company’s success.

Longstanding vendor relationships supplied another layer of support. A new-market restaurant required a supplier to commit before Dave’s had scale. The interview does not disclose vendor terms, capital commitments, food pricing, or franchisee costs. The lesson is clear, but its economic return remains unquantified.

Why keep the team that reached 500?

Bitticks rejected the idea that employees who carry a company through its first stage of growth lack the skills for its next stage. “One of my maniacal focuses is … the team that got us to the first 500, I still want those people to be here when we get to the second 500,” he said.

With 358 units, Dave’s has not reached the first milestone in that comparison. His position treats retention as part of expansion, not a separate personnel issue. He would evaluate capability and potential instead of assuming scale requires replacement.

He drew a parallel to his earlier Carl’s Jr. experience, where some of his strongest general managers had advanced from team-member roles and developed restaurant-management skills inside the business. That history supports internal promotion, but Dave’s does not disclose management turnover, succession plans, or the number of long-tenured leaders responsible for current expansion. The policy’s value will depend on retention as much as hiring.

What does shared leadership mean?

Bitticks described working relationships spanning decades and several brands, with colleagues following him into assignments, helping construct new systems, and contributing expertise that differed from his own. He attributed much of his personal success to the colleagues who had remained with him. He described the achievement as something they had done together.

His account makes leadership collective rather than heroic. It also assigns credit to franchisees, vendors and internal operators who supplied experience before Dave’s reached scale. That wider credit fits his expansion model. It does not establish accountability for sales declines, service failures, or vendor performance.

As Dave’s moves beyond 358 locations, the test will be whether weekly training, protected food standards, vendor support and veteran employees preserve restaurant-level performance while the chain adds units. Bitticks has explained the operating structure for the first 500 and the next 500. He has not shown whether that structure can carry the brand to the second 500.