Food & Beverage

Chicken Salad Chick Franchise

A fast-casual restaurant chain built around a limited menu of specialty chicken salads, pimento cheese, side salads and soups, sold individually or by the pound for carryout, dine-in and catering. Stacy and Kevin Brown opened the first Chicken Salad Chick in Auburn, Alabama in January 2008; the current franchisor entity, Simply Southern Restaurant Group, LLC, has offered franchises since October 2012 after taking over from a predecessor entity of the same name. Franchised unit count grew every year of the FDD's three-year window, accelerating from +21 in 2023 to +46 in 2025.

Opening more locationsFounded 2008HQ: Atlanta, GA

Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from Chicken Salad Chick's own filing.

What it costs to open

From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.

Franchise fee

$50,000

Total to open

$777,000–$998,500

Ongoing royalty

5% of gross sales

What you'd actually spend, over time

The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.

Your estimated annual revenue

Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from Chicken Salad Chick's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$1,027,000 – $1,248,500

Startup investment

$777,000–$998,500

Royalty per year (5%)

$50,000

Total royalty, 5yr

$250,000

When would you break even?

Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Chicken Salad Chick's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical food & beverage profit margin (~8%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.

Estimated profit margin (% of revenue)

%≈ $80,000/year

Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from Chicken Salad Chick's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.

At that profit, you'd break even in about

9.7–12.5 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Chicken Salad Chick is opening more locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.

Is Chicken Salad Chick actually growing?

Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:

Locations opened vs. closed, by year

Growing

From Item 20 of Chicken Salad Chick's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

+21

+26

+46

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	159	180	+21
2024	180	206	+26
2025	206	252	+46

Most recent year (2025): gained 46 franchised units, ending the year at 252 total.

What you're actually signing up for

The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.

Training & ongoing support (Item 11)

Item 11: initial training and a required initial inventory purchase of proprietary cake/dessert products from affiliate SSRG Cake; the restaurant may also operate a limited-service "satellite location" that resells product prepared at the main restaurant.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: a real Protected Area -- generally a 1-mile radius from the restaurant's front entrance (smaller or none in dense urban or non-traditional venues) -- within which Chicken Salad Chick won't operate or license another restaurant, though it retains broad rights to sell similar products through other channels and to acquire competing businesses.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year initial term, with up to three additional 10-year renewals if the franchisee meets then-current requirements, including a full remodel and IT upgrade.

How Chicken Salad Chick compares to other Food & Beverage franchises

Across the 50 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $882,585–$2,162,912, with royalties averaging around 5.6% of gross sales (based on the 46 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).

Dave's Hot Chicken

$617,800–$2,170,000 · 6% royalty

Slim Chickens

$1,188,900–$4,944,000 · 5% royalty

Ziggi's Coffee

$315,830–$2,093,361 · 6% royalty

Crumbl

$848,566–$1,472,533 · 8% royalty

Little Caesars

$376,500–$1,769,200 · 6% royalty

Jamba

$480,850–$941,300 · 6% royalty

Tropical Smoothie Cafe

$300,000–$720,500 · 6% royalty

Playa Bowls

$188,675–$636,458 · 6% royalty

Kona Ice

$114,730–$228,601 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Firehouse Subs

$166,671–$950,351 · 6% royalty

Wingstop

$310,400–$1,048,500 · 6% royalty

Jersey Mike's Subs

$436,176–$1,162,228 · 6.5% royalty

Dunkin'

$532,400–$1,832,500 · 5.9% royalty

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

$1,222,045–$3,923,245 · 5% royalty

Del Taco

$1,461,200–$3,313,500 · 5% royalty

Blaze Pizza

$757,000–$1,297,100 · 5% royalty

Church's Texas Chicken

$1,202,400–$1,886,300 · 5% royalty

MOD Pizza

$924,732–$1,220,633 · 5% royalty

Twin Peaks

$2,959,000–$5,734,000 · 5% royalty

McDonald's

$1,470,500–$2,642,000 · 5% royalty

Subway

$263,000–$630,000 · 8% royalty

Taco Bell

$1,859,750–$4,312,200 · 5.5% royalty

Domino's Pizza

$231,450–$743,500 · 5.5% royalty

KFC

$2,107,575–$4,155,000 · 5% royalty

Burger King

$2,039,200–$4,730,600 · 4.5% royalty

Chick-fil-A

$317,521–$3,463,155 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Penn Station

$507,500–$858,750 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Nekter Juice Bar

$243,155–$647,160 · 6% royalty

Jimmy John's

$366,200–$733,500 · 6% royalty

Sonic Drive-In

$1,485,200–$2,522,900 · 5% royalty

Papa John's

$281,485–$890,267 · 5% royalty

Hungry Howie's Pizza & Subs

$238,982–$697,322 · 5.5% royalty

Jack in the Box

$1,909,500–$4,041,500 · 5% royalty

Wendy's

$1,523,957–$2,992,000 · 4% royalty

Marco's Pizza

$286,477–$811,186 · 5.5% royalty

Pizza Hut

$846,000–$2,130,000 · 6% royalty

Teriyaki Madness

$392,667–$1,121,405 · 6% royalty

Cold Stone Creamery

$390,675–$680,775 · 6% royalty

Scooter's Coffee

$1,163,650–$1,345,750 · 6% royalty

Nothing Bundt Cakes

$475,200–$994,100 · 6% royalty

Five Guys

$977,850–$1,375,750 · 6% royalty

Tim Hortons

$427,500–$3,312,500 · 6% royalty

7 Brew

$940,500–$2,283,500 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Swig

$608,400–$1,718,000 · 7% royalty

Culver's

$3,406,350–$10,294,100 · 4% royalty

Dairy Queen

$1,516,200–$2,543,050 · 4% royalty

Paris Baguette

$727,515–$1,860,550 · 5% royalty

Jollibee

$1,614,568–$4,589,057 · 5% royalty

Smoothie King

$329,850–$683,215 · 6% royalty

Keep going

Chicken Salad Chick and Blaze Pizza are both food & beverage franchises; Blaze Pizza's total investment starts about $20,000 lower than Chicken Salad Chick's. Blaze Pizza Franchise
Chicken Salad Chick and Paris Baguette are both food & beverage franchises; Paris Baguette's total investment starts about $49,485 lower than Chicken Salad Chick's. Paris Baguette Franchise

Where this came from: Chicken Salad Chick has no California DFPI entity at all (not even an exemption filing), so this entry is sourced entirely from Minnesota's CARDS registry: MN File No. 10519, Clean FDD issued December 29, 2024, filed 4/21/2026, effective 5/11/2026. Item 5: $50,000 initial franchise fee for a first restaurant, plus a separate $10,000 Grand Opening Marketing Fee -- the automated parser mistook the $10,000 marketing fee for the franchise fee itself. Item 6: royalty is 5% of Gross Sales (minimum $600/month); Advertising Contribution is up to 4% of Gross Sales, currently charged at 2%. Item 7 Total (non-Drive-Thru location): $777,000-$998,500 (a Drive-Thru location runs $802,000-$1,033,500). Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-05-11. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.

If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.