Drew Travis, most recently Senior Vice President of Finance at GoTo Foods, joins Chicken Salad Chick as Chief Financial Officer effective August 2026, giving the 340-unit fast-casual chain its third executive-level hire of the year as it accelerates a multi-state development push.
Travis brings 18 years of finance experience and more than a decade inside the restaurant industry, including nearly six years at GoTo Foods — the multi-brand franchisor behind Cinnabon and Moe's Southwest Grill — where he held roles from Senior Director through SVP of Finance. He has also held senior financial positions at Bloomin' Brands and GrubHub, along with stints at Discover Financial Services and Levi Strauss & Co. His background covers FP&A, P&L management, accounting, data analytics, and strategic planning — a toolkit aligned with scaling a franchise system that is adding units across new geographic markets.
The Expansion Context
The CFO hire is the third consecutive C-suite addition this year for the Atlanta-based brand: Jill Thomas came aboard as Chief Marketing Officer and Brian Lindley as Chief Development Officer in February. The sequencing — marketing, development, then finance — tracks how fast-casual franchise systems typically layer leadership when unit counts move past the 300-unit threshold and franchisee support complexity increases proportionally. Chicken Salad Chick now operates in 25 states and this summer opened its first locations in Minnesota and Pennsylvania. New state entries slated for the remainder of 2026 include West Virginia, New York, and Michigan, all of which represent incremental territory for a concept that has historically concentrated in the Southeast.
"As Chicken Salad Chick enters its next phase of growth, my goal is to help strengthen our financial foundation and support our franchise owners as they expand," Travis said.
Franchise Infrastructure at Scale
Scott Deviney, CEO and president of Chicken Salad Chick, framed the hire around the brand's ability to sustain high-growth franchise economics. Unit-level economics and franchisee profitability have become central recruiting levers across fast-casual segments; brands that cannot demonstrate strong store-level margin tend to see area development agreements stall. Travis's GoTo Foods background — a system that manages multiple franchise brands simultaneously — gives him direct exposure to the royalty structures, co-op marketing mechanics, and multi-unit operator dynamics that drive franchise system health at scale.
For operators tracking fast-casual franchise development trends, Chicken Salad Chick's leadership build-out signals that the brand is positioning its back-office infrastructure ahead of what appears to be a sustained unit-growth cycle. The brand's niche as the only nationally franchised fast-casual concept dedicated exclusively to chicken salad has historically insulated it from direct head-to-head competition on menu, though it competes for real estate and franchisee capital against the broader fast-casual lunch segment. Travis holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University.
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.
