The Expansion Move
Chicken Salad Chick is bringing its first West Virginia location to Barboursville on September 16, pushing the Atlanta-based fast casual chain into 26 states and past the 345-unit threshold. The new restaurant sits at 21 Tanyard Station Drive in the Tanyard Station shopping center, adding dine-in, takeout, third-party delivery, and catering to an underserved tri-state corridor straddling West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.
The Barboursville opening is operated by first-time franchisees Tammy and Rancie Hannah, a husband-and-wife team whose professional backgrounds — pharmaceutical sales and hospice medicine, respectively — sit outside traditional foodservice. That demographic is increasingly common in fast casual franchising, where operators with service-sector careers trade recurring client relationships for consumer-facing hospitality models. Scott Deviney, CEO and president of Chicken Salad Chick, called the West Virginia entry "another milestone in our brand's development momentum this year," signaling that the chain's pipeline remains active well beyond this single opening.
Pipeline and Competitive Context
Deviney flagged first-time restaurant openings in New York and Michigan as additional near-term milestones, suggesting the brand is pushing into denser, more competitive urban and Midwest markets alongside its traditional Southeast stronghold. For a concept built on a narrow menu — more than a dozen scratch-made chicken salad varieties plus soups, sandwiches, and desserts — the geographic spread is notable: few single-protein fast casual brands have replicated across this many states without significant menu diversification. The chain's consistent appearances on Entrepreneur and Franchise Times rankings underscore its appeal to multi-unit development investors scanning franchise expansion trends.
The Barboursville unit's grand opening week rolls out a five-day promotional cadence. The first 100 guests in line on September 16 win free chicken salad for a year — one large Quick Chick weekly for the lead customer, monthly for the next 99. Subsequent days offer branded merchandise and complimentary meals to the first 50 qualifying purchasers at the 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. windows. Pre-opening Friends & Family events are directing proceeds to Ronald McDonald House, consistent with the brand's CSC Foundation model that otherwise supports CURE Childhood Cancer and local food banks year-round.
What It Means for Operators
The Hannahs' entry into franchising illustrates a structural trend in fast casual unit growth: operators with deep community ties and professional service backgrounds are increasingly winning development agreements in secondary and tertiary markets where brand-name recognition is still building and real estate costs remain manageable. The Barboursville location is expected to anchor a broader tri-state push; the couple separately agreed to bring the brand to Ashland, Kentucky, signaling a multi-unit commitment from the outset.
For the broader fast casual chicken segment, Chicken Salad Chick's deliberate state-by-state rollout — now crossing into Appalachia — demonstrates that niche daypart concepts anchored in lunch and catering can sustain franchise momentum without pivoting to dinner-heavy menus or drive-through infrastructure. The Barboursville unit will operate daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., a window squarely targeting the lunch and early-dinner dayparts that define the brand's revenue mix. As Food & Beverage Magazine has tracked, disciplined daypart focus remains a key differentiator for fast casual concepts navigating labor cost pressure in smaller 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.
