These Are the Top 10 Chicken Chains in America

This pioneering rotisserie-chicken chain has been downsizing. At the end of 2018, it had 454 locations around the country, but this July the chain announced that it was shuttering 45 of them. Though it still has a place on NRN’s top 10 list, sales have been declining steadily since a peak of $615 million in 2014. Overexpansion, a menu that lags behind consumer preferences, and the ubiquity of rotisserie chickens at the nation’s supermarkets have been cited as among the reasons for its decline.

A 67-year-old chain with about 1,045 U.S. locations, Church’s is one of America’s favorite places to get chicken. In addition to its hand-battered fried chicken, Church’s offers Southern-style sides, including fried okra, honey-butter biscuits, and jalapeños, either pickled or in the form of “Cheese Bombers.”

A rarity in the fast food chicken world because its birds are marinated in citrus juices and spices and then flame-grilled instead of battered and deep-fried, El Pollo Loco reported a systemwide 1.2% sales growth at the end of 2018, compared with a 1.5% growth the previous year. The chain, which has 484 restaurants around the country, offers chicken burritos, tostadas, and quesadillas as well as combination plates, including beans, rice, and tortillas or chips.

A 400-outlet operation founded in 1996, Raising Cane’s — named after a yellow Labrador belonging to one of the founders — recorded a category-topping 22.5% systemwide sales growth in 2018. The specialty, obviously, is chicken fingers — boneless, battered, and deep-fried. Crinkle-cut fries, coleslaw, and Texas toast fill out the menu.

With almost 1,150 units around the U.S., Wingstop experienced a 15.3% sales increase in 2018, over its 2017 number. Wings and fries are the focus of the business, and the chain takes pride in not offering gluten-free, paleo, or vegan options. “We’re not a flavor-of-the-month brand by any stretch,” the company’s CEO, Charlie Morrison, told Restaurant Business earlier this year.

With 763 restaurants as of this summer, this Southern-inflected chain, founded in 1977 and primarily covering the southeastern U.S., recently hired a new chief development officer charged with driving growth. Sold to two investment companies last fall and taken private, the chain reported a meager overall 1.4% sales growth in 2018 over the previous year.

While other chains might specialize in chicken wings or chicken fingers, Zaxby’s offers both, in several varieties, as well as salads not usually found on fast-food menus (the Caesar and the Cobb). Zaxby’s saw a 7.4% sales growth across its 900-plus units last year.

“Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen’s eight-day chicken sandwich frenzy, ignited with a single tweet,” wrote reporter Jonathan Maze last month in Restaurant Business, “has been bad news for two top rivals: KFC and Chick-fil-A.” Both rival operations lost business to Popeyes in August, with some of the chain’s units reporting sales increases of 50% to 60% for the week of August 19. Last year, Popeyes saw a 5.1% increase in sales from its 2,347 U.S. restaurants, but chances are the number will be higher for 2019.

The granddaddy of American fried chicken chains, whose origins date back 89 years to Harland Sanders’ first restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, KFC might have almost 4,100 units around America, but it showed a disappointing 0.4% increase in sales last year over 2017. It’s trying new strategies, including a test of a vegan fried chicken product produced by Beyond Meat, in the form of nuggets and wings, at a unit in Atlanta in August, and the rollout this month of four varieties of chicken wings.

Chick-fil-A has been criticized and sometimes boycotted over its owners’ support of anti-gay groups and its opposition to same-sex marriage — but over the years, protests have quieted, and, as Slate reported earlier this year, “many progressives have slunk back through the restaurant’s doors.” That may partially account for the fact that the chain rules the roost in the fast-food chicken world, with its 2,370 U.S. units bringing in more than $10 billion last year, representing a 13.5% increase over 2017.