The Appointment
Chicken Salad Chick, the Atlanta-based fast-casual franchise built around chicken salad, has named Drew Travis as Chief Financial Officer, effective August 2026 — the third C-suite hire the brand has made this year as it accelerates a multi-state expansion drive.
Travis brings more than 18 years of finance experience to the role, including over a decade in the restaurant industry. He joins from GoTo Foods — the multi-brand franchising group formerly known as Focus Brands and parent to Cinnabon and Moe's Southwest Grill — where he spent nearly six years, most recently as Senior Vice President of Finance. Earlier roles included senior financial leadership positions at Bloomin' Brands and GrubHub, as well as stints at Discover Financial Services and Levi Strauss & Co. He holds an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Growth Context
The hire is timed to a meaningful inflection point for the franchise. Chicken Salad Chick now operates more than 340 restaurants across 25 states, and the brand debuted in Minnesota and Pennsylvania earlier this summer. New market entries planned for the remainder of 2026 include West Virginia, New York, and Michigan — states that would extend the chain's footprint well beyond its Southern heartland into the competitive Northeast and Midwest fast-casual corridors.
Travis's appointment follows the February additions of Jill Thomas as Chief Marketing Officer and Brian Lindley as Chief Development Officer, signaling a deliberate effort to build out professional infrastructure ahead of what management describes as a "next phase of growth." For franchise-heavy restaurant concepts, CFO hires of this caliber typically signal preparation for accelerated unit development, potential recapitalization, or a closer look at institutional capital options — though Chicken Salad Chick has not disclosed any such plans publicly.
Franchise Model in Focus
Scott Deviney, CEO and president of Chicken Salad Chick, cited Travis's track record with high-growth franchise brands as central to the hire. "His proven ability to guide high-growth restaurant brands will be instrumental as we continue expanding into new markets," Deviney said.
For franchise operators and foodservice investors tracking fast-casual growth, the appointment underscores a broader pattern: regional concepts with strong unit economics are increasingly formalizing their finance functions as they push past the 300-unit threshold, a scale at which franchise support infrastructure and P&L discipline become critical to sustaining franchisee profitability. Chicken Salad Chick's positioning as the only national fast-casual concept focused exclusively on chicken salad gives it a differentiated niche, though expansion into denser, higher-cost markets like New York will test whether that unit economics story holds in less familiar territory.
Travis framed his priorities around the franchise system itself. "My goal is to help strengthen our financial foundation and support our franchise owners as they expand," he said.
For additional context on executive movement in the restaurant franchise sector, this appointment fits a broader trend of fast-casual operators upgrading finance leadership as they seek to institutionalize growth ahead of potential strategic transactions.
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.
