Dave's Hot Chicken has the best origin story in fast food, and unlike most of them it holds up. In May 2017, four Armenian-American friends from Los Angeles pooled $900, bought a portable fryer and some folding tables, and set up in an East Hollywood parking lot. Eater LA's Farley Elliott showed up early on and told readers the chicken might blow their minds. The line went around the block. When people ask whether Dave's is a local spot or a chain, that parking lot is why the question feels open. The answer is not.
The short answer: Dave's Hot Chicken is a chain
Dave's Hot Chicken is a chain of nearly 400 restaurants, almost all of them franchised, and since June 2025 it has been majority-owned by Roark Capital, an Atlanta private equity firm. Roark is the same firm that owns Subway, Inspire Brands (Arby's, Sonic, Dunkin', Buffalo Wild Wings, Jimmy John's), GoTo Foods (Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Jamba), and a minority of Culver's. Dave's slots into that portfolio without a seam.
Franchising is how a parking-lot stand became 400 restaurants in eight years, and it is also why each one can feel like a neighborhood business. The operator is often local. The brand, the recipe, the store design and the royalty stream are not.
| Question | Dave's Hot Chicken |
|---|---|
| Is it a chain? | Yes |
| Who owns it? | Roark Capital (majority since June 2025); founders and early investors hold minority stakes |
| Publicly traded? | No. Private, no ticker |
| How many locations? | Nearly 400 as of January 2026, in the US, Canada, UK and Middle East |
| Franchised? | Yes, almost entirely; franchising began in 2019 |
| Founded | May 2017, East Hollywood parking lot, Los Angeles |
| Locally owned? | No |
Who owns Dave's Hot Chicken?
Roark Capital owns the majority. The money trail has three chapters. First came the founders: Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan, and brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan, who owned the whole thing when it was a stand and then a single storefront on Western Avenue.
In the fall of 2019 an investor group led by Bill Phelps, who had co-founded Wetzel's Pretzels and helped build Blaze Pizza, bought in and took over franchising. That group brought in names that made headlines: Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Strahan, Maria Shriver, Red Sox owner Tom Werner, and later Drake, who gives away free chicken on his birthday every October. Usher became a franchisee.
Then, on June 2, 2025, Dave's announced that Roark Capital had acquired a majority stake. Terms were not disclosed, but Phelps told CNBC the reported $1 billion valuation was "pretty close." The four founders and Phelps kept minority stakes, and Oganesyan said the deal made about 20 people millionaires. Management stayed in place. In January 2026 Jim Bitticks, the longtime president and operating chief, took over as CEO, and Phelps moved to executive chairman.
So when you buy a slider at Dave's today, the royalty on that sale flows to a company controlled by a private equity fund in Atlanta that also collects royalties on Subway footlongs and Arby's roast beef.
Is Dave's Hot Chicken publicly traded or on the stock market?
No. Dave's has never gone public, has no ticker, and cannot be bought on any exchange. Roark, its majority owner, is also private.
That may not stay true for long. Bitticks told Restaurant Business that Phelps liked to call the plan "the three-year sprint to IPO," and that Roark's playbook with Wingstop, which it took public in 2015, was the model. Nothing has been filed as of September 2026. If you see a Dave's Hot Chicken stock symbol advertised somewhere, it does not exist yet.
Is Dave's Hot Chicken a franchise? How many locations are there?
Dave's is a franchise system, almost entirely. Franchising started in 2019 once Phelps's group came in, and it moved fast: seven restaurants in early 2021, 118 by 2023, about 250 at the end of 2024, and nearly 400 by January 2026. The company had sold franchise rights for more than 1,000 units by the time of the Roark deal, and Bitticks said in early 2026 that the US was "completely sold out," with Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico the last territories to go.
Outside the US, Dave's has restaurants in Canada, the United Kingdom, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The first UK store, on Shaftesbury Avenue in London, opened on December 7, 2024 as the brand's 250th location, the first of 60 planned with Azzurri Group. About 30 international restaurants were open by March 2026, with roughly 300 more sold.
US system sales were $617 million in 2024, up 57 percent on 245 restaurants, according to Technomic. Executives expected to pass $1 billion in 2025. That is what Roark paid for: not the chicken, but the royalty on all of it.
Why Dave's Hot Chicken feels local when it is not
The grassroots feeling comes from a story that is true, not a story a marketing agency wrote. The brand grew on Instagram and word of mouth. The lines came before the money did. That is the opposite of how a chain normally launches, and it is why the local perception outlasted the location count.
The details are better than the legend. Kopushyan had cooked at The French Laundry and several Los Angeles restaurants and was working at a vegetarian cafe in Echo Park when Oganesyan, a fried-chicken obsessive, pushed him to try Nashville hot chicken. He was a vegetarian himself at the time and, by his friends' account, was not into the idea at first. The recipe he worked out is still the one the chain uses.
- $900 and a fryer. The founders' entire starting capital bought a portable fryer, folding tables and coolers for a late-night stand in an East Hollywood parking lot in May 2017.
- A chef, not a franchisor. Kopushyan is now chief culinary officer, and executives credit sticking to his original recipe and process for keeping the food consistent as the chain scaled.
- Word of mouth before capital. The Eater LA write-up and the lines it produced came two years before the first outside investor.
Is that a bad thing?
Not on its own. The chicken is good, the founders earned every dollar of that exit, and being bought by private equity is not a moral failing. Plenty of Dave's franchisees are first-time operators who put their savings into a single store and work the line themselves. Your local one may be run by exactly that kind of person.
But if you are choosing Dave's because you want your money to stay in the neighborhood, most of it does not. The franchisee keeps the margin after rent, labor and food. The royalty goes to a company majority-owned by Roark. The brand, the menu and the pricing are decided in Los Angeles and Atlanta, not by the person at the register. That is the honest answer to an honest question.
A $900 parking lot and a brilliant recipe built the brand. A $1 billion deal handed the majority to private equity. Both of those things are true at the same time.
Find independent hot chicken and fried chicken spots near you
Independent hot chicken is easy to find if you know where to look. Nashville-style has taken root at small, owner-run shops in most large and mid-size cities, often run by cooks who, like Kopushyan in 2017, are working out their own recipe in a rented kitchen. Google Maps buries them under sponsored results and chain pins.
That is what Anything But A Chain is built to fix. The map filters every chain automatically, Dave's included, and shows only independent, locally owned restaurants. Search fried chicken or hot chicken near you and everything on the map is owned by the person running it.