North Shore Entry
Big Chicken opened its Beverly, Massachusetts location on August 22, marking the fast-casual chicken chain's second permanent storefront in the Bay State and adding another data point to a franchise pipeline that now exceeds 40 open units across North America. The Beverly unit, situated at 55 Dodge Street on Boston's North Shore, is operated by JBMM Hospitality — the four-partner franchisee group behind the brand's Massachusetts rollout.
JBMM's path to Beverly followed an unconventional development arc. The group debuted the concept via a mobile "Dunk Truck" pop-up at Wrentham Premium Outlets in 2025, converted that traction into a permanent Wrentham storefront in January 2026, and has now layered in the Beverly unit — a multi-step area development approach that let the operator build local brand awareness before committing to brick-and-mortar capital.
Franchise Development Context
The Beverly opening fits a broader expansion pattern for Big Chicken, which operates across traditional storefronts, arenas, airports, and cruise ships. That venue diversity gives the brand multiple revenue streams and a lower-friction path to unit count growth compared with operators locked into a single format. For franchisees like JBMM, the traditional storefront model carries the full menu — stacked sandwiches including the Shaq Attack and The Ultimate, signature sides, hand-spun milkshakes, and the Shaq Snacks LTO — alongside the chain's evolving "Big Dip Energy" limited-time dip program, which rotates monthly and currently features a Root Beer BBQ option.
Gregg Majewski, CEO of Big Chicken, framed Beverly as a deliberate market fit rather than opportunistic fill: "Beverly has all the ingredients we look for in a Big Chicken community — great energy, a strong local identity and people who appreciate seriously good food." The comment signals that the brand is applying market-selection discipline as it pushes unit count past 40, a threshold where franchisee support infrastructure and brand consistency typically become key levers for sustained unit growth.
Grand Opening Mechanics
The chain's grand opening playbook leaned on a jersey-number hook tied to Shaquille O'Neal's time with the Boston Celtics: the first 36 guests received free sandwiches for a year — a loyalty-driver tethered to the Big Chicken Rewards app that simultaneously builds the brand's first-party data asset. App enrollees at the event were also entered for signed sports memorabilia, a low-cost traffic accelerator that is increasingly standard across fast-casual openings in competitive urban-adjacent markets.
For the broader chicken sandwich segment, Big Chicken's Massachusetts expansion comes as the fast-casual tier continues to absorb franchisee interest that might previously have gone to more saturated QSR concepts. Backed by Craveworthy Brands, JRS Hospitality, and Authentic Brands Group, the chain carries celebrity-brand recognition that lowers local marketing costs — a meaningful unit-economics advantage for emerging franchisees navigating elevated occupancy and labor costs in New England markets.
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.
