This article is part of “Where Are They Now?”—an ongoing series in which Franchise Times managing editor Emilee Wentland and reporter Alyssa Huglen catch up with emerging brands.
Chicken finger concept Guthrie’s entered the world of franchising in 2005. Twenty years later, the brand continues to progress in its expansion efforts.
“We are just blessed to be here and blessed to carry on the Guthrie tradition,” said Joe Kelly Guthrie, CEO and son of founder Hal Guthrie. “We have been extremely busy working on some of the things that are going to come to fruition this year.”
The Alabama-based brand has grown to 70 locations nationwide. Guthrie said his goal is to open between 20 and 25 units this year, with slightly less than half franchised.
Expansion is bringing Guthrie’s to more states. The brand will debut in the Carolinas, with 10 to 15 openings slated for this year.
Guthrie’s CEO Joe Kelly Guthrie
When Franchise Times last spoke with Guthrie’s in 2022, the company looked to add to its count of 46 locations. Franchisees Matt Dahlhauser and Stephen Galbraith signed a 50-unit agreement with the option for an additional 50, bringing new locations to Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico.
The development is well underway two years later, with units opened in Idaho and Nevada and more westward locations slated to open this year.
While unsure if the franchisees will exercise their additional option at this time, Guthrie said growth movement is on track to hit the 50-unit mark out west.
The chicken segment’s rise in popularity has contributed to the brand’s growth, he added.
“Chicken is the hottest of all concepts in the restaurant business, and chicken finger restaurants are a huge portion of that,” Guthrie said. “Therefore, we are having more opportunities come out of the woodworks than ever before.”
Drive-thru-only models continue to drive success for the company. Around eight to 10 locations are drive-thru-only, and the company is looking to expand while working on a new model design. “The way we prepare our food, it’s very easy to eat in an automobile going down the road having gone through a drive-thru,” Guthrie noted, calling the option “extremely important” to growing Guthrie’s reach.
This year marks another milestone for the brand: its 60-year anniversary. A brandwide celebration is in the works for July 31, the company’s founding date.
“We will always be the original chicken finger restaurant,” Guthrie said. “Obviously imitation is the most sincere form of flattery—and we appreciate that—but we feel like we are the original.”
As Guthrie previously told Franchise Times, his dad launched the first Guthrie’s in 1965 and started selling chicken fingers in 1978, with he and his siblings concocting its signature dipping sauce. The founder of Raising Cane’s and the co-founder of Zaxby’s, two chicken tenders-focused concepts that got their start in the ‘90s, worked at Guthrie’s restaurants early on, Guthrie noted in that earlier interview.
Do copycats make him mad? “Oh no, there’s room for everyone, and competition makes you better,” Guthrie said at the time. “We’re here for the next 20 years, and we’d like our fair share of what’s coming forward.”
The company hired a national marketing firm and plans to roll out its first campaign in upcoming months, hoping to increase brand familiarity and inform people of Guthrie’s longstanding relationship to chicken.
The investment range needed to operate a Guthrie’s is between $261,050 and $569,200, according to the company website.
“Chicken is just so hot right now, and we feel like we’ve created the hottest thing in the industry of chicken. We know we have … and we’re growing very fast,” Guthrie said. “It is just a super hot segment right now, and we’re fixing to market ourselves to be original in that space.”