Scale and Pipeline
Chicken Salad Chick has crossed 350 operating restaurants in 27 states, with more than 100 franchise units awarded so far in 2026 — a record pace that translates directly into a sustained pipeline of new commercial kitchen buildouts. The fast-casual chain, which centers its menu on made-from-scratch chicken salad produced in each location, has simultaneously entered five new states this year: Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia. With nearly 350 additional locations in its development pipeline, equipment dealers and kitchen design consultants active in the Northeast and Mountain West should expect accelerating project volume.
Northeast Push Drives Build Volume
The most significant near-term opportunity for the equipment supply chain sits in the Northeast, where Chicken Salad Chick signed what it describes as the largest development agreement in company history — a 25-unit deal targeting Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and the Upper Hudson Valley in upstate New York. Additional units are open or under development in Allentown, Collegeville, and South Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as Barboursville and South Charleston, West Virginia. Each new location requires a scratch-prep kitchen configured for high-volume salad production, refrigerated cold-holding, and catering output — a spec profile that leans heavily on prep-and-storage equipment including commercial food processors, reach-in and walk-in refrigeration, and cold-food display cases.
What It Means for Dealers and Specifiers
Chicken Salad Chick's kitchen model is ingredient-forward and cold-focused, which distinguishes it from burger or pizza concepts that anchor around high-BTU cooking suites. Consultants specifying these kitchens will prioritize refrigerated prep tables, high-capacity slicers, walk-in cooler configurations sized for bulk chicken production, and cold-holding and display equipment at the front counter. The catering component — a stated menu pillar — adds demand for transport equipment and bulk cold-storage capacity beyond a typical fast-casual footprint. Dealers building relationships with the brand's incoming multi-unit franchisees in New Jersey, New York, and central Pennsylvania, where territories remain open, are well positioned to capture equipment packages across a rapid rollout schedule. For context on how fast-casual expansion is reshaping commercial kitchen design and energy load planning, the shift toward cold-assembly kitchens over heavy-cook lines continues to influence both ventilation requirements and utility costs per unit. Mark Verges, Vice President of Franchise Development at Chicken Salad Chick, emphasized that growth is being led by experienced multi-unit operators aligned with the brand's hospitality mission — a profile that typically means faster decision cycles on equipment packages and stronger vendor consistency across a franchise system.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
