The Growth Playbook Every Restaurant Owner Needs to Study
Big ideas need to be constant. Every single day you need to think big.
But the cherry on top is always the execution. Where the output of all your doing is far greater than the input work you put into it.
Restaurant owners work hard hours. Most of it feels repetitive. The grind causes many to work on tasks that feel productive but move nothing forward. They stay busy but never actually grow.
But if you have real passion for your restaurant to become successful, if you have a big idea and vision you want to reach, you would analyze what is wrong from the ground up and rebuild everything around the philosophy of 80/20. Where 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of the work.
This does not mean working less. It means prioritizing based on outcomes. Identifying the tasks that produce the most results. Making them more elegant, easier, more qualitative. Then scaling those relentlessly while continuously improving everything else.
Three brands have done this better than almost anyone in the restaurant industry. Dave's Hot Chicken. Crumbl Cookies. Raising Cane's.
They achieved explosive growth by questioning everything the industry assumed was true. They doubled down on what actually drives success and ignored everything else.
Let me break down exactly how they did it and show you how any restaurant, whether fast, casual, or fine dining, can apply these same principles to build something extraordinary over the next two to five years.
Dave's Hot Chicken: From $900 Parking Lot Pop-Up to a Billion-Dollar Brand
The story of Dave's Hot Chicken reads like a Hollywood script, which makes sense given it started in Hollywood.
In 2017, four childhood friends pooled together $900. That is not a typo. Nine hundred dollars. They bought a portable fryer, set up some folding tables in a parking lot in East Hollywood, and started selling Nashville-style hot chicken under the night sky.
The founders were Dave Kopushyan, a chef who had trained at Thomas Keller's three-Michelin-star restaurant The French Laundry, Arman Oganesyan, a high school dropout who would become the marketing genius behind the brand, and brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan.
Here is what happened next.
The Timeline That Changed Everything
The pop-up launches in May. They serve one thing: hot chicken tenders. No restaurant. No investors. Just a parking lot, a fryer, and a product so good people could not stop talking about it. Oganesyan uses Instagram to spread the word. A food blogger from Eater LA shows up, takes a bite, and the next morning publishes a headline that reads "East Hollywood's New Late Night Hot Chicken Stand Might Blow Your Mind."
The lines start stretching down the block and around the corner.
After seven months of operating the pop-up and saving money, the team opens their first brick-and-mortar location in a strip mall on Western Avenue. Gary Rubenyan joins the team and contributes $100,000 to help make it happen.
An investment group that includes Bill Phelps, former CEO of Wetzel's Pretzels, and movie producer John Davis buys a stake in the company. Phelps becomes CEO with plans to franchise the brand nationally.
Drake discovers Dave's Hot Chicken when it is catered at his Billboard Artist of the Decade party. He tries the food, meets the founders, hears their story, and becomes a significant investor. Other celebrity investors follow, including Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Strahan, and Maria Shriver.
2022 to 2024. The chain expands aggressively. They open 60 net new stores in 2022 and 73 in 2023. Locations spread across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East.
June 2025. Private equity firm Roark Capital acquires a majority stake in Dave's Hot Chicken in a deal valued at approximately one billion dollars. The company now operates over 300 locations globally with systemwide sales exceeding $600 million annually.
From $900 in a parking lot to a billion-dollar acquisition in eight years.
How They Made the Product the Marketing
Dave's did not build their brand through advertising. They built it through a product so remarkable that customers became the marketing department.
The hot chicken was designed to create reactions. The spice levels, especially the notorious Reaper challenge, generated moments worth filming. People sweating. People crying. People declaring it the best chicken they had ever tasted. All of it captured on phones and shared across TikTok and Instagram.
As CEO Bill Phelps explained, "Each year, millions of fans visit us and post on social media about how Dave's Hot Chicken blows their mind."
This was not accidental. Arman Oganesyan understood from the beginning that if you create something worth talking about, people will talk about it. The company's strategy became amplifying customer-generated content rather than creating polished corporate campaigns. When fans posted videos of their spice challenge experiences, Dave's shared them. The content felt authentic because it was authentic.
The Drake Effect
Drake's involvement added rocket fuel to an already burning fire. But it was not just about celebrity endorsement. Drake genuinely loved the product and became an active participant in building the brand.
Every year since 2023, Dave's has celebrated Drake's birthday by giving away free sliders at every location nationwide. Customers download the app, show up, and get free chicken. The promotion generates massive social media buzz, with lines stretching down blocks in cities across the country.
This is the third year running for the birthday giveaway, and it has become a tradition that fans anticipate and share widely online.
The Assumptions They Shattered
Dave's proved wrong several things the restaurant industry believed to be true.
First, they proved you do not need a broad menu to scale. Dave's focuses almost exclusively on hot chicken tenders and sliders with varying spice levels. That is essentially the entire menu. This laser focus makes operations efficient, quality consistent, and training simple. Every location delivers the same experience because there is only one product to perfect.
Second, they proved rapid expansion does not have to kill authenticity. The edgy, street-food brand persona that made the original pop-up special has been protected and replicated everywhere. The graffiti branding, the hip music, the hot chicken served in trays. Each franchisee is chosen for cultural fit, not just financial capability.
Third, they proved you do not need a big marketing budget if your product markets itself. User-generated content became the engine. Real customers having real reactions to real food. No scripts. No production budgets. Just genuine enthusiasm spreading organically.
Crumbl Cookies: Engineering a Two-Billion-Dollar Viral Machine
Crumbl's growth is arguably the most aggressive in modern restaurant history. They expanded faster than McDonald's did in its early years. Faster than Starbucks. And they did it selling cookies.
The Timeline of Explosive Growth
Cousins Sawyer Hemsley and Jason McGowan open the first Crumbl location in Logan, Utah. Hemsley is finishing his degree at Utah State University, studying communications with a minor in marketing. McGowan has a background in tech, having worked at companies like Ancestry.com. Neither has any professional baking experience.
They spend months perfecting their chocolate chip cookie recipe through systematic A/B testing, enlisting friends, family, and strangers to taste-test until they get it right. McGowan invests approximately $68,000 of his own money to get the business off the ground.
They begin expanding cautiously. By the end of the year, they have grown from one store to about 15 locations.
Despite the pandemic, Crumbl accelerates. By August 2020, they reach 100 locations. The model proves perfect for delivery and pickup. Social media engagement explodes as people stuck at home discover the brand through viral videos.
Growth becomes exponential. They end the year with over 300 stores nationwide.
The pace becomes almost unbelievable. They add 363 net new stores in a single year. By July, they have over 400 locations across 45 states.
They add another 184 stores and expand into Canada with four locations. They finish the year with 970 units.
The 1,000th store opens in February. By December, they have 1,071 locations.
They surpass 1,100 locations across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. The company explores a potential sale with a valuation of approximately two billion dollars based on annual earnings of nearly $150 million.
From one store in a Utah college town to over 1,100 locations and a two-billion-dollar valuation in eight years.
The Weekly Drop Strategy
Crumbl engineered virality into their business model from day one.
The rotating weekly menu is the core of everything they do. Every Monday, they release a new lineup of cookie flavors. Only the chocolate chip and a few staples remain constant. Everything else changes. This week might feature mint chocolate. Next week might be churro or pumpkin cheesecake or something entirely unexpected.
This creates several powerful effects.
Urgency. If you want that cookie, you have to get it this week. Next week it might be gone forever. This triggers fear of missing out and drives immediate action.
Novelty. There is always something new to try. Customers do not get bored because the menu never stays the same long enough to become boring.
Content. Every week brings new reasons to post, share, and discuss. The Sunday night flavor reveal has become an event that fans anticipate and engage with religiously.
Co-founder Jason McGowan explained their approach: "It creates that hype. It creates that excitement. And it also creates some scarcity, because you can only have that cookie for that week."
The Social Media Domination
Crumbl's social media strategy has been central to their success. As McGowan said, "Our strategy right from the beginning was social media."
The numbers are staggering. Crumbl has over 9.7 million followers on TikTok alone. Their combined following across platforms exceeds 16 million. They employ a dedicated social media team of over 30 people.
But what makes their strategy work is not just posting content. It is creating content worth sharing and building systems that turn customers into unpaid marketers.
The pink box was designed as an Instagram prop. Sleek, distinctive, instantly recognizable. When someone posts a Crumbl unboxing, everyone knows exactly what brand it is. The packaging became marketing.
The open kitchen concept in every store creates a theatrical experience. Customers watch their cookies being baked fresh, which provides endless content opportunities and makes the in-store experience itself worth sharing.
The weekly flavor reveals generate massive anticipation. Fans film reaction videos, rank the new flavors, debate which cookies are best, and use hashtags like #CrumblReview to share their opinions. This creates an army of content creators producing free advertising with the credibility that only comes from real customers sharing real opinions.
Celebrity Collaborations That Multiply Reach
Crumbl has mastered the art of strategic partnerships that generate buzz and expand their audience.
They collaborated with the Jonas Brothers to launch a signature cookie. They created flavors inspired by Olivia Rodrigo's album "Guts." They partnered with Kylie Cosmetics for a limited edition six-pack. They launched "The Afterlife Cake" to promote the Beetlejuice sequel. Most recently, they partnered with Jimmy Fallon to create a limited edition Holiday Seasoning Candy Cane Brownie.
Each collaboration brings the celebrity's fanbase into contact with Crumbl, while giving existing fans something new and exciting to try and share.
The Assumptions They Shattered
Crumbl proved wrong the idea that consistency beats change in food service. Traditional restaurant wisdom says stick to a stable menu and give customers what they expect. Crumbl made constant change their entire selling point. They recognized that humans crave both new experiences and comforting quality, and delivered both by perfecting their recipes and then continuously remixing them.
They proved you do not need to buy ads to gain customers. Their growth was achieved primarily through organic social buzz and word of mouth. They cultivated community instead of buying reach, and the result was more powerful and sustainable than any ad campaign.
They proved that a single product category can support massive scale. Everyone assumed you needed menu breadth to grow a national chain. Crumbl sells cookies. That is essentially it. And they built a two-billion-dollar business doing one thing exceptionally well.
Raising Cane's: The 29-Year Journey to Overnight Success
Raising Cane's timeline is longer than the other two, but the story is equally instructive. Sometimes the most sustainable empires are built through patient, deliberate growth.
The Timeline of Steady Dominance
Todd Graves opens the first Raising Cane's near Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He funds the launch partly with money earned working in an oil refinery and fishing for sockeye salmon in Alaska. The restaurant is named after his yellow Labrador retriever.
The menu has one thing. Chicken fingers. Everyone tells him it will never work. A restaurant cannot succeed selling just one item.
1996 to 2010. Slow, steady growth. The brand builds a cult following in Louisiana and Texas. Every new location is packed. The model works. But Graves refuses to franchise aggressively. He wants to protect the culture and quality, so he keeps almost everything company-owned.
2010 to 2020. Growth accelerates but remains disciplined. The brand expands beyond the South. By 2020, they have just over 500 locations. Same-store sales grow every single year for over 15 years straight.
2020 to 2024. Expansion becomes explosive. In 2024, they open a record-breaking 118 new restaurants. They end the year with 828 locations.
They continue opening approximately 100 new restaurants per year. As of late 2025, they operate over 900 locations with a goal of reaching 1,600 and becoming a top 10 U.S. restaurant brand. They reported $5.1 billion in systemwide sales in 2024, surpassing KFC to become the third-largest chicken chain in America behind only Chick-fil-A and Popeyes.
From one restaurant in Louisiana to the third-largest chicken chain in America in 29 years, with the most explosive growth happening in the final five.
One Thing Done Ridiculously Well
Raising Cane's proves that simplicity scales.
The menu is almost comically focused. Chicken fingers, crinkle fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, and their famous Cane's sauce. No burgers. No salads. No seasonal menu items. No expansions trying to please everyone. Just one meal done perfectly every single time.
This focus creates massive operational advantages. Training is faster because there is only one thing to master. Quality is more consistent because there is only one product to perfect. Expansion becomes simple replication of a proven model.
The results speak for themselves. In 2024, Cane's restaurants averaged $6.6 million in unit volume, more than double the fast-food industry average.
As co-CEO AJ Kumaran explained, they are "climbing the ladder slowly, but we're humble about it."
The Company-Owned Advantage
Here is something remarkable about Raising Cane's: only about 3 percent of their restaurants are franchised. Almost everything is company-owned.
This goes against conventional wisdom. Most chains seeking rapid growth franchise their locations because franchisees share the risk and shoulder most capital expenses. Franchising provides consistent cash flow from royalty fees. Every competitor, from Chick-fil-A to KFC to Dave's Hot Chicken, franchises a majority of locations.
Cane's chose a different path. By keeping control, they protected their culture and quality. They did not have to worry about franchisees cutting corners or diluting the brand. Every location operates exactly the way headquarters intends.
As industry analyst Mark Kalinowski noted, "When you get to a certain size, franchisee growth becomes a way to fund future expansion, so it's unique that they are able to do this. I think part of it is the fact that they do have superior unit economics compared to the rest of the category."
Culture as the Growth Engine
Raising Cane's secret weapon is not the chicken. It is the culture.
The company treats employees like the most important customers. High wages. Growth opportunities. Fun work environment. Direct access to leadership. Even a store cashier can text or call the co-CEO directly.
The Restaurant Partner Program creates owner-like dedication at the store level. Top-performing managers can become partners with significant profit share, with some on track to reach one million dollars in net worth through company stock.
The result is unheard-of loyalty in an industry notorious for turnover. Cane's promotes thousands of crew members every year. A recent survey showed Raising Cane's employees are among the happiest in the fast food industry, with more than 80 percent saying they would recommend the job to a friend.
The Lottery Ticket Story
In July 2022, when the Mega Millions jackpot reached $810 million, founder Todd Graves did something unusual. He spent $100,000 of his own money to buy 50,000 lottery tickets, one for every employee at the company.
If he won, he planned to split the entire jackpot among all 50,000 crew members.
"As soon as we heard how big this jackpot prize is, we couldn't miss out on the chance to win the Mega Millions jackpot and share it with our Crew who always stand together," Graves said. "None of what we do at Cane's would be possible without our Crew, which is why we are always looking for ways to bring them a little extra fun."
He did not win. But the story generated national buzz and perfectly illustrated the culture that makes Raising Cane's different. Real gestures that show real appreciation create real loyalty and real word of mouth.
Community Over Advertising
Raising Cane's grand openings are local events, not just new store launches.
Freebies for the community. Charity fundraisers. Partnerships with schools and sports teams. The company has a strong connection to college communities that started nearly three decades ago when the first restaurant opened near LSU. Many new locations open strategically near major universities, and the brand actively invests in youth initiatives and disaster relief.
This builds word of mouth that no advertising can match. Customers feel connected to their local Cane's in a way they never feel connected to a typical chain restaurant.
The Assumptions They Shattered
Cane's proved you can scale a menu with just one item. While most chains chase menu breadth to please everyone, Cane's doubled down on chicken fingers and still became a national giant.
They proved front-line fast food jobs do not have to have high turnover. By treating crew as the most important customers, they built loyalty that translates directly into better customer experience.
They proved fast expansion does not require franchising. Sometimes owning the process and pacing growth for consistency leads to a bigger, more sustainable result than rushing to franchise.
The Patterns Every Restaurant Owner Must Understand
Three very different brands. Three very different timelines. Dave's did it in eight years through franchising and viral social media. Crumbl did it in eight years through engineered virality and aggressive franchise expansion. Cane's did it in 29 years through patient company-owned growth and culture building.
But the same fundamental patterns appear in all three.
Pattern One: The Product Must Be Worth Talking About
All three brands created products so remarkable that customers could not help but share them.
Dave's spicy chicken challenges create dramatic moments worth filming. Crumbl's weekly flavor drops create anticipation worth discussing. Cane's perfect chicken fingers and sauce create consistent quality worth recommending.
Before you spend a dollar on advertising, ask yourself honestly: is my product worth talking about? Is there something so good, so unique, so memorable that customers will naturally share it?
If the answer is no, fix the product first. No amount of marketing will overcome a forgettable product.
Pattern Two: Turn Customers Into Content Creators
All three brands built systems that transform customers into their marketing department.
Dave's amplifies user-generated spice challenge videos. Crumbl created shareable moments with weekly drops and Instagram-worthy pink boxes. Cane's built community connections that generate organic word of mouth.
You do not need a massive content team. You need to create experiences worth sharing and then make it easy for customers to share them.
What would make someone pull out their phone in your restaurant? A dramatic dish presentation? A photo-worthy corner with good lighting? A signature experience that feels special? A challenge or limited-time offer that creates urgency?
When customers create content about you, it has credibility that paid advertising can never match.
Pattern Three: Focus Beats Breadth
All three brands defied the assumption that you need a broad menu to succeed.
Dave's sells hot chicken. Crumbl sells cookies. Cane's sells chicken fingers. That is essentially it for each of them.
This focus makes operations efficient, quality consistent, and the brand clear. Customers know exactly what they are getting. Every employee knows exactly what they are making. Expansion becomes replication of a proven model rather than management of complexity.
What is your one thing? What could you become the absolute best at in your market? Focus there and let competitors spread themselves thin trying to do everything.
Pattern Four: Culture Compounds Over Time
Raising Cane's especially proves that how you treat employees directly affects how customers experience your restaurant.
Invest in your team. Create growth opportunities. Build real relationships. Make people feel valued and they will make customers feel valued.
This is not soft advice. It is strategic. High turnover costs money and destroys consistency. Engaged employees deliver better service and stay longer. Culture compounds over time into something competitors cannot easily copy.
Pattern Five: Patience and Speed Are Both Valid
Dave's and Crumbl grew explosively through franchising. Cane's grew steadily through company ownership.
Both approaches worked because both companies executed their chosen strategy with discipline.
If you franchise, protect your brand fiercely. Choose franchisees for cultural fit. Build systems that maintain quality at scale.
If you stay company-owned, accept slower growth in exchange for tighter control. Build unit economics strong enough to self-fund expansion. Invest in the culture that makes your approach sustainable.
The wrong choice is no choice. Trying to do both without committing to either leads to mediocrity.
How to Apply This to Your Restaurant Over the Next Two to Five Years
You are not going to become Dave's Hot Chicken overnight. But you can apply these same principles to build something remarkable.
Year One: Find Your One Thing and Make It Remarkable
Identify what you could be the absolute best at. Not good at. The best at. In your market, in your category, for your customers.
Then make that one thing worth talking about. Not through marketing. Through the product itself. What would make someone pull out their phone? What would make someone tell their friends?
Build systems that encourage sharing. Create photo-worthy moments. Make the experience itself generate content.
Fix your culture. How do your employees feel about working for you? What would make them genuinely invested in your success? The foundation you build now will compound for years.
Year Two: Scale What Works
Double down on your one thing. Do not diversify too early. Get known for something specific. Become the best at it in your market.
Build your content engine. By now you should see patterns in what content performs. Create more of what works. Invest in better content creation, whether that means hiring help or improving your own skills.
Develop your team. Promote from within. Create opportunities for growth. Start building the kind of loyalty that takes years to cultivate.
Years Three to Five: Accelerate With Discipline
With product, content, and culture in place, now you can accelerate.
Consider expansion. A second location. A franchise model if that fits your vision. Partnerships that extend your reach. The foundation you built makes growth sustainable rather than chaotic.
Increase marketing investment, but only amplify what is already working organically. Do not buy reach for a brand that has not been proven. Let organic success guide paid strategy.
Protect what made you successful. As you grow, the temptation will be to add menu items, cut corners, dilute the brand. Resist. The focus and quality that built you must be maintained to sustain you.
The Real Question
You have seen what is possible.
$900 to a billion-dollar brand. One cookie store to a two-billion-dollar empire. A single-item menu to the third-largest chicken chain in America.
These are not flukes or lucky breaks. They are the result of first-principles thinking, relentless focus, and deep understanding of what actually drives growth in the restaurant industry.
The question is not whether this could work for you.
The question is whether you are willing to do the work.
To find your one thing and commit to it completely. To create products worth talking about. To turn customers into your marketing department. To build culture that compounds over time. To think big every day and execute with the discipline that turns big ideas into real results.
The next Dave's Hot Chicken, the next Crumbl, the next Raising Cane's is out there waiting to be built.
It might as well be you.
Take the Next Step
If you are ready to build something bigger than what you have now, if you want help creating the content engine and marketing strategy that turns customers into your growth machine, let us talk.
We work with restaurant owners who think big and want the systems to execute on that vision. Owners who are ready to stop doing what everyone else does and start building something worth talking about.
Schedule a call and let us find out if we are the right fit.
https://www.anthconsulting.com/restaurant-growth-challenge#calendar-652ZsXHqbhZk
Your restaurant could be the case study people study five years from now. Let us start building it today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How did Dave's Hot Chicken grow so fast without a big marketing budget?
They created a product that marketed itself. The spicy chicken challenges generated videos that customers wanted to film and share. Dave's strategy was to amplify this customer content rather than create expensive corporate campaigns. When fans posted videos of their spice challenge experiences on TikTok and Instagram, Dave's shared them. The authenticity of real customers having real reactions built trust and reach that paid advertising could never match. By 2025, this approach helped them reach over 300 locations and a billion-dollar valuation.
What makes Crumbl's weekly rotating menu so effective for growth?
The rotating menu creates urgency, novelty, and constant content opportunities. Every week brings new flavors, which means every week brings new reasons to visit and new things to share on social media. The limited-time nature triggers fear of missing out. Customers have to come this week or miss that flavor potentially forever. This turns a one-time purchase into a weekly habit. The Sunday night flavor reveals have become events that fans anticipate and engage with, driving their TikTok following to over 9.7 million.
Can a restaurant really succeed with just one menu item like Raising Cane's?
Absolutely. Cane's proved that doing one thing exceptionally well beats doing many things adequately. Their focused menu makes operations more efficient, quality more consistent, and the brand more clear. The result is industry-leading unit economics, with average restaurant volumes of $6.6 million in 2024, more than double the fast-food average. They have become the third-largest chicken chain in America selling essentially one product. The key is that the one thing must be genuinely excellent.
How long does it realistically take to build this kind of brand?
It varies significantly. Dave's went from a parking lot pop-up to a billion-dollar acquisition in eight years. Crumbl went from one store to a two-billion-dollar valuation in eight years. Raising Cane's took 29 years but built one of the most sustainable brands in the industry, with the most explosive growth happening in the final five years. Your timeline depends on your model, your market, and your strategic choices about franchising versus company ownership. Most restaurants can build significant local brand recognition and a strong content engine within two to three years.
Do these strategies work for fine dining or just fast casual?
The principles apply across all restaurant types, though the execution differs. Fine dining might not have spice challenges, but they can create shareable moments through presentation, experience, and storytelling. The weekly drop concept could become a rotating tasting menu that creates urgency. Culture and employee investment matter regardless of price point. The core ideas of remarkable product, customer-generated content, strategic focus, and strong culture are universal.
How do I get customers to create content about my restaurant?
Create moments worth capturing. A dramatic dish presentation. A signature experience. A photo-worthy space with good lighting and your branding visible. Then make sharing easy and rewarding. Feature customer content on your channels. Engage with everyone who posts about you. The restaurants that generate the most user content are the ones that intentionally design shareable moments and actively encourage participation. Both Dave's and Crumbl built their entire brands around making the experience itself worth sharing.
What if I already have a broad menu and cannot simplify to one item?
You do not need to eliminate everything, but you do need a signature. Something you are known for. Something customers specifically come to you for and talk about. Even with a broad menu, identify your hero product and build your marketing around it. Let that signature dish be the reason people discover you, even if they end up ordering other things once they arrive.
How important is social media versus traditional advertising for restaurant growth?
For building a brand that sustains itself, social media and organic content are far more powerful than traditional advertising. Ads can drive traffic but they stop working when you stop paying. A strong social presence with customer-generated content continues building momentum indefinitely. All three brands in this article grew primarily through organic social buzz and word of mouth. Crumbl has over 16 million followers across platforms with a dedicated 30-person social media team. Dave's built their brand almost entirely through user-generated content. Raising Cane's built theirs through community connection and employee advocacy. Paid advertising can amplify what is already working, but it cannot replace authentic engagement.
