State No. 26
Chicken Salad Chick crosses into West Virginia on September 16 with a grand-opening unit in Barboursville's Tanyard Station shopping center — the brand's first foray into The Mountain State and its 26th state of operation across a systemwide footprint that now exceeds 345 restaurants. The Atlanta-based fast-casual concept, which positions itself as the only chicken-salad-focused QSR chain in the country, is deploying a multi-day traffic-driving activation to seed trial in the new market, including a free-chicken-salad-for-a-year prize for the first 100 guests in line at the 10 a.m. open.
Franchisee Profile
The Barboursville unit is owned by Tammy and Rancie Hannah, a husband-and-wife team making their debut as franchise operators. Tammy brings more than 30 years of pharmaceutical sales experience at Pfizer; Rancie is a practicing physician specializing in hospice care in Russell, Kentucky. The couple had been loyal customers of the brand before pursuing an area development agreement that will also bring a Chicken Salad Chick to Ashland, Kentucky, extending their footprint into a tri-state trade area. Their son, completing a business degree at Eastern Kentucky University, is expected to join the operation following graduation — a family-run structure common among emerging fast-casual franchisees building multi-unit portfolios.
Development Momentum
CEO and President Scott Deviney framed the West Virginia entry as part of a broader expansion push, noting that first-in-state openings in New York and Michigan are also on the near-term calendar. "Expanding Chicken Salad Chick's reach to West Virginia is another milestone in our brand's development momentum this year," Deviney said. For a concept that built its base across the Southeast, pushing into the Northeast and Midwest represents a meaningful geographic test of brand portability beyond its core regional stronghold. The Barboursville unit offers dine-in, takeout, third-party delivery, and catering — a channel mix that reflects the brand's effort to capture both impulse and planned-purchase occasions.
The opening also spotlights a community-integration strategy that Chicken Salad Chick deploys systemwide. The brand's CSC Foundation directs fundraising toward CURE Childhood Cancer and local food banks; the Barboursville team is channeling pre-opening Friends & Family event proceeds to Ronald McDonald House. That kind of localized giving program has become a franchise recruitment and retention tool for emerging chains competing against larger QSR operators for qualified multi-unit developers in secondary and tertiary markets — markets where fast-casual franchise development has accelerated as urban cores have become more capital-intensive to enter.
For operators tracking chicken-category unit growth, Chicken Salad Chick's state-count expansion is notable in a segment where most growth is driven by established players in the chicken sandwich and wing dayparts. The brand's differentiated positioning — made-from-scratch salads, a dozen-plus flavor SKUs, and a lunch-dominant daypart — gives it a largely uncrowded competitive lane, though it operates against broader fast-casual sandwich and salad concepts for the same afternoon trade.
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.
