FAYETTEVILLE -- While drive-thrus aren't typically part of a fast-casual restaurant's bag of tricks, from its inception, Slim Chickens has banked on serving drive-up customers.
Now the chicken chain is experimenting with extended hours at its drive-thrus in eight key locations -- all close to a college or university campus -- in a bid to get its food to people who crave chicken tenders or fried pickles as midnight snacks.
M̶i̶l̶e̶s̶ Myles* Gift, vice president of operations with Slim Chickens, said in the spring the company began to experiment with keeping its drive-thrus in five eateries open after the typical closing time of 10 p.m. He said the stores were seeing a rush of customers around closing time, so it was clear there was pent-up demand for the company's chicken and other offerings later in the night.
"Our guests demanded it, so we gave it a shot," Gift said.
He said customers -- particularly younger ones -- responded eagerly.
Now Slim Chickens has drive-thru hours that extend to 1 a.m. at the company's two locations in Fayetteville and its Rogers operation; at its restaurants in Spring and Cypress, Texas; and at its Stillwater, Broken Arrow and Norman operations in Oklahoma.
Gift said the new hours required some shift changes and a few more employees. He said plans are to eventually implement the later drive-thru hours on a case-by-case basis across the chain and will be centered on demand.
Kevin Murphy, chairman of the Hospitality Service Department at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida, said the decision to keep drive-thrus open later is market-driven and based on a target demographic -- customers between the ages of 18 and 24.
"This strategy doesn't just focus on millennials, it's just a younger demographic," he explained. "They just tend to keep later hours."
Young people are often up well into the night, eat later and often work in the service or restaurant industry themselves, so when they get off work, they're hungry and have limited options to choose from because most restaurants are closed.
"It's a common strategy," Murphy said.
Gift said initially the drive-thrus' customers were a lot of service industry folks, but word about the later hours has gotten out and the company is now seeing more third-shift workers who stop in to buy their lunches as they head to work or to eat while on their lunch breaks.
Fayetteville-based Slim Chickens was founded in 2003 and is privately owned. It has more than 50 locations in 11 states with more than half of those franchise restaurants.
Last year, Slim Chickens struck a deal with Alghanim Industries to open restaurants in the Middle East and North Africa. It opened its first store in Kuwait City in the summer. The company has said it hopes to eventually have 600 restaurants across the U.S.
Slim Chickens competes in the fast-casual segment, where restaurants provide an enhanced dining experience as compared with fast-food operations. Fast-casual restaurants don't have wait staffs. Its servers generally hand customers their food. Part of the package is a comfortable atmosphere, usually including music, big-screen TVs and catchy graphics.
According to a June report by Chicago-based Technomics, sales at the country's top 250 fast-casual chains grew 8.4 percent in 2016, with total revenue of $40.4 billion.
The report notes that while the growth exceeds that of other industry segments, it's not as big as the 11.9 percent growth seen in 2015, or the 13.8 percent seen in 2014. The report noted a decrease in unit development and the struggles of major chain Chipotle as having an impact on overall segment performance.
"As the overall chain restaurant marketplace tightens and the fast-casual segment slowly moves towards a point of maturity, it will become increasingly important for chains to differentiate themselves and stand out in a crowded playing field," Keven Schimpt, industry research manager at Technomics, said in a statement.
A market study released by London-based Technavio in late 2016 predicts that the fast-casual segment in the U.S. will have sales of $66.9 billion by 2020 with an estimated annual growth rate of 10 percent.
Murphy said restaurants tend to offer a limited menu when they keep their drive-thrus open later. The selections are typically an eatery's greatest hits -- its most popular and reliable sellers.
Gift said Slim Chickens is offering the full menu at its extended-hours drive-thrus, and so far, order sizes tend to be a little larger.
The most popular item for its late-night customers so far?
"It's our tenders," he said. "It's what we're famous for."
SundayMonday Business on 08/27/2017
*CORRECTION: Myles Gift is the vice president of operations for Fayetteville-based Slim Chickens. His first name was misspelled in a previous version of this article.