The Channel Play
Slim Chickens, the 300-plus-unit fast-casual chicken chain, has activated ordering directly from the Samsung Smart TV home screen in Northwest Arkansas, teaming with shoppable-streaming platform klyq and direct-to-merchant network Gett to let consumers place delivery orders via remote control — no app download, no QR code, no third-party marketplace.
The mechanic is straightforward: a Slim Chickens advertisement appears on the Samsung TV home screen, viewers tap through to short-form brand content, and add items — tenders, wings, sandwiches, sauces — to a cart using klyq's patented BuyBar™. Checkout completes on the television. Orders then route through Gett's First Party Everywhere (FPE) network directly into Slim Chickens' own online ordering platform, the same infrastructure behind the brand's app and website. No new point-of-sale hardware is required at the restaurant level.
Why Margin Control Matters
The first-party routing is the commercial crux of the arrangement. Because no third-party marketplace sits between consumer and restaurant, Slim Chickens retains the customer data and relationship and charges its own menu prices rather than a marketplace-inflated rate. For a fast-casual operator watching delivery economics closely, the margin difference is material: third-party platforms typically charge restaurants commission rates ranging from 15.0% to 30.0% of order value, fees that either compress restaurant-level EBITDA or get passed to consumers through higher listed prices.
Gett's FPE network, which counts more than 40,000 partner restaurants, is explicitly designed to route orders through high-traffic consumer channels — smart TVs, AI assistants, video games, social platforms — while keeping the transaction inside a brand's own ordering stack. klyq's BuyBar™ is available across more than 80 million U.S. Samsung Smart TVs, with stated expansion plans covering Vizio, Apple TV, and Google TV.
"The TV has always been where people get hungry. We just made it a place where they can now do something about it effortlessly," said Ben Turner, vice president of brand performance at Slim Chickens. "We're not just renting space on the biggest screen in the house. We're turning TVs into Slim Chickens counters."
Franchise Context and Scale
Fayetteville, Arkansas — where Slim Chickens opened its first location in 2003 — is a logical pilot market. The chain has since expanded to more than 300 units across 34 U.S. states and four international markets, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Turkey, and Malaysia, with a stated target of more than 600 restaurants over the next decade. The TV-ordering pilot tests whether connected-device commerce can serve as a scalable off-premises demand channel alongside conventional delivery aggregators.
The move reflects a broader shift playing out across the fast-casual and QSR segments, where brands are investing in proprietary digital ordering to reduce dependency on third-party delivery platforms. Connected-TV advertising spending in the U.S. continues to grow, and operators who can convert that impression inventory into direct transactions gain a measurable cost advantage. For franchise systems managing unit-level economics, the ability to route incremental delivery volume through a first-party channel — without retraining staff or installing new equipment — lowers the barrier to adoption considerably.
Nick Buzzell, co-founder, chairman and CEO of NBTV, klyq's parent, framed the proposition in straightforward terms: "Restaurants have been advertising on TV for 70 years and asking people to remember them later. klyq closes that gap, enabling instant purchase with home delivery."
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.
