Interactive Customer Experience (ICX) Summit

How Dave's Hot Chicken wins with authenticity

Dave's Hot Chicken went from a parking lot pop-up to a fast casual juggernaut. The opening keynote at the Interactive Customer Experience Summit in Charlotte from Sept. 11 to 13 took a look at how the brand did it.

Arman Oganesyan, co-founder and CBO and Jim Bitticks, president and COO of Dave's Hot Chicken. Photo credit Networld Media Group

September 12, 2023 by Bradley Cooper — Editor, ATM Marketplace & Food Truck Operator

How did a small restaurant that began as a pop-up in a parking lot end up as a major success story that created a fandom and blew up across the U.S. and the world? That's what Jim Bitticks, president and COO of Dave's Hot Chicken and Arman Oganesyan, co-founder and CBO, discussed about their brand during the opening keynote of the Interactive Customer Experience Summit, held from Sept. 11 to 13 concurrently with the Bank Customer Experience Summit in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Bitticks said that when he first started at Dave's Hot Chicken, there were only four locations, now there are 148 in the U.S. and around the world. All locations except for six are franchise owned. It was won multiple accolades, including the No. 1 position for Fast Casual's Top Mover's and Shaker's and has attracted an investment from the singer Drake, actor Samuel L Jackson and others.

"How'd we do this? We stayed true to our roots," Bitticks said.

Oganesyan, who was a stand up comedian, worked with his friend Dave Kopushyan, co-founder and chef, to create a recipe for hot chicken. Upon doing so, they pulled together $900 to start a pop-up location in a parking lot in Los Angeles where they used plastic screaming chicken toys to get attention from pedestrians. They attempted to gain the attention of Eater LA editor Farley Elliot. After some social media tagging, he came to visit them on the third day of operations and wrote an article about the pop-up, praising it. This brought the restaurant a great deal of attention.

Six months later in January 2018, Oganesyan was able to open a first brick and mortar location but wanted to keep the same feel of the street and a unique feel, so they hired artists to paint the interior in a graffiti style.

Some time later, John Andrew Davis, a film producer and founder of Davis Entertainment, got ahold of Oganesyan because he loved the brand and became an investor alongside Bill Phelps, co-founder and CEO of Wetzel's Pretzels.

Oganesyan said although many businesses fear that investors will ruin it, their "investors enhanced the business."

On the consumer side, the brand has received a lot of attention on TikTok and YouTube with food reactions from users, who often react highly positively to the chicken (typically with profanity).

However, Bitticks brought up a key point: how do you grow a brand like this?

"How do you operationalize that reaction (from social media) and how do you scale it?" Bitticks said.

He brought up four key elements:

• Stewarding the brand rather than taking it over.
• Locking down food safety.
• Providing great service.
• Guiding franchisee owners on how Dave's Hot Chicken operates.

On the operational side, Bitticks gave several examples such as using reputation management tools to keep track of online reviews while keeping the personality of the brand alive through the chicken, the service and the vibe. In addition, Dave's Hot Chicken launched an app, but didn't send out text messages or use it to gather data, not wanting to irritate customers.

"I know this flies in the face of every conference you've heard, but no one likes the constant spam," Bitticks said.

Keeping Oganesyan's "good vibes" and funny personality was key.

One example was Dave's Hot Chicken's official playlist, which keeps the same music it had when it was a pop-up. Notably, it lacks Drake but keeps some older "feel-good" music.

Eventually the brand whittled down its values to five principles.

"Build something phenomenal, remember how we got here, include and respect our partners, never give up and execute, excel and enjoy," Bitticks said. The first words in each of these values add up to "brine," which is how Dave's Hot Chicken makes its chicken and represents its notion of "brining" its employees, Oganesyan said.

In the end, it all comes back around to its chicken, Bitticks said.

"I have a sign that says our chicken is our superpower," he said. "My boss tells me change that to people. But the brand exists because the chicken is so good."

About Bradley Cooper

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Bradley Cooper is the editor of ATM Marketplace and Food Truck Operator. He was previously the editor of Digital Signage Today. His background is in information technology, advertising, and writing.

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