Fast-casual chicken restaurant chain Slim Chickens is experimenting with prototype smaller footprint stores to capitalize on demand in urban markets and unusual locations where space is often available only at a premium price.
The Fayetteville-based restaurant group, with 81 stores in 14 U.S. states, Kuwait and the United Kingdom, recently opened a smaller store in Bentonville and has one in Springdale and one in Fayetteville. It also has recently added stores in nontraditional locations like stadiums, malls and airports. Slim Chickens has already tried stores with smaller footprints in London, where they've proven to be popular.
Tom Gordon, company founder and chief executive officer, said in a recent interview the smaller stores are about 2,400 and 2,800 square feet, have drive-thrus, offer a full menu and have a reduced seating area. He said they can be built on smaller lots in denser urban areas and inside larger locations, such as malls.
The company's Bentonville small format store, at 1400 S.E. Eagle Way near Northwest Arkansas Community College, opened last week. It's the smallest at 2,400 square feet with seating for 76 inside and 30 outside. The Springdale restaurant at 5240 W. Sunset Ave. is the largest of the small footprint stores at nearly 2,800 feet, with seating for 98 inside and 30 outside. In Fayetteville, at 1855 Martin Luther King Blvd., Slim Chickens converted a 2,500-square-foot building that once housed a Dunkin Doughnuts. It has seating for 56 inside and exterior seating for 30.
Last year, Slim Chickens opened smaller, "nontraditional" operations in Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, at Boone Pickens Stadium at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Okla., a mall in Chicago and in Kuwait International Airport.
Slim Chicken's was founded in 2003 and is privately owned. Twenty-one of the stores are owned and operated by Slim Chickens while the remainder are franchise stores. The company said it has 300 locations under development agreements with the goal of opening 600 restaurants over the next decade.
Slim Chickens competes in the fast-casual segment, where restaurants provide a slightly more formal dining experience compared with fast-food operations. While fast-casual restaurants don't have a wait staff, servers generally take customers food to their table. Other aspects of the segment include a comfortable atmosphere, usually including music, big-screen TVs and appealing graphics.
Anne Mills, a senior manager for consumer insights for foodservice research firm Technomic, said trends in limited service restaurants, which include the fast casual segment, have many chains experimenting with small format prototypes. She said recent developments in the industry indicate not all locations need to be as large as in days past.
Forbes reported in the summer that Wendy's is implementing its Smart 2.0 design, which gives franchisees more choice including smaller restaurants. The options include locations with anywhere between 30 and 55 seats, the magazine reported.
Mills said smaller stores help offset rising costs for land and building material, while new technology, including new self-ordering systems that utilize kiosks and tablets, help reduce lines and wait time. Also, new delivery and pick-up options mean restaurants don't require as much dedicated seating.
Data analytic company Statistica said the Quick Service Restaurant segment, which includes fast casual operations, saw total U.S. revenue in 2018 of $256 billion.
Slim Chickens' Gordon said the smaller format options will be beneficial to the company's franchisees who may not be interested in adding a full-sized store or who may locate a favorable spot for a restaurant but find it just a bit too small. He said the company will roll out other smaller stores based on demand.
"We want to make this size available to our franchisees so they can be opportunistic," Gordon said.
SundayMonday Business on 02/03/2019