A Billion Dollar Deal In the Works for Dave's Hot Chicken

Yahoo

26-02-2025

Eight years after pooling their combined savings of $900 to sell fried chicken out of a yellow pop-up tent in East Hollywood, the four young founders of Dave's Hot Chicken are about to ink a deal to sell their Pasadena-based chain of restaurants for $1 billion according to The Wall Street Journal. Arman Oganesyan, Tommy Rubenyan, and Gary Rubenyan had no restaurant experience when they teamed with chef Dave Kopushyan to create their crave-worthy chicken, slaw, and curly fries. 'We took the idea of In-N-Out,' Oganesyan said in an interview. 'The concept of it and the way it works, and we took the flavor of hot chicken, and we combined it together, and that's how the idea was kind of born'Today, the franchised chain boasts 275 restaurants, from the original brick-and-mortar on Western Avenue to stores in three dozen states, Canada and the Middle East. The chain's investors include Samuel L. Jackson, former California first lady Maria Shriver, Boston Red Sox Chairman Tom Werner, and rapper Drake, and it consistently placed among the best hot chicken restaurants (we ranked it #2 in L.A.) and among the most successful franchises. Last year, food research firm Technomic named Dave's the fastest-growing restaurant chain in America.Of course, private equity came calling. Atlanta-based Roark Capital, named for the hard-charging character in Ayn Rand's book The Fountainhead, is a behemoth in food service and the world's largest investor in franchise companies. The $38-billion fund has already snatched up Carl's Jr., Subway, Arby's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Jimmy John's, adding them to a portfolio filled with an endless string of strip mall dining favorites: Dunkin, Cinnabon, Jamba, and Baskin Robbins are all part of Roark. Private equity firms manage $6 trillion in assets in every industry, from housing to hospitals to fast food.
Throughout all of their success, co-founder and namesake Dave Kopushyan has always done it for the food. 'As a chef,' he said in an interview. 'I'm proud of the food that I make, and I want people to have it. When I see people eat and they look at each other and they smile like 'yeah, this is good.' That's why I do my job.'
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