Posted on 06/04/2025 2:24:48 PM PDT by DFG
Apparently, convincing your friends to sell chicken can pay off — big.
At 24, Arman Oganesyan was making $50 a night as a stand-up comedian with no restaurant or business experience when he pitched the idea of selling Nashville hot chicken to his childhood friends Dave Kopushyan and Tommy Rubenyan. Pooling $900 in savings, they launched Dave’s Hot Chicken in 2017 as a pop-up in a Los Angeles parking lot.
On Monday, private equity firm Roark Capital bought a majority stake in Dave’s Hot Chicken, which is now a franchise business with more than 300 locations, in a deal worth “pretty close” to $1 billion, Dave’s CEO Bill Phelps said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“It’s insane what we did,” Phelps said. “The vision of these guys was just great. Arman Oganesyan was the founder. A high school dropout, but a marketing genius, and he created all of this in his head.”
But the idea nearly didn’t happen. Kopushyan — a chef who had worked at Michelin-starred restaurants — initially told Oganesyan, ”‘Chicken? First of all, I don’t even like chicken,’” Oganesyan said on the “How I Built This Podcast with Guy Raz” in 2024.
It took some convincing, but with Kopushyan eventually on board, they went to their other friends looking for investors, Oganesyan said — everyone turned them down, except Tommy Rubenyan. Oganesyan said the trio scraped their savings together and got to work developing a Nashville hot chicken recipe, drawing inspiration from popular Los Angeles restaurant Howlin’ Ray’s, which has two locations.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
The one near me in San Diego is always packed.
“Can’t understand the line at the place all the time.”
Agree. The food is OK - mediocre. Not good enough to justify waiting in a long line (IMO).
“Yan Yan Yan’s Chicken” — that would have been hilarious. I’ll bet they thought about it.
Tried all the ones you mention but I like Tumble 22 in Austin/Houston best. I heard Landry’s just bought it out so I hope they don’t screw it up.
Nice to see someone appreciates my humor, er, marketing skills :-)
I tried Dave’s while on vacation.
Being a wuss, I went for medium heat. I thought I was going to die.
The sauce also made the coating really soggy.
We recently had a Cane’s open up in our neighborhood. It is chicken fingers...that’s it...chicken fingers. They offer a sandwich...which is chicken fingers on a bun. They offer a salad, which is a salad with chicken fingers in it. They do offer french fries and Texas toast. Snore.
Too funny.
Will have to check out Tumble 22. Thanks for mentioning.
My wife loves Chick-Fil-A for some reason. They always have a long line but they move it really fast. I just don’t get it. It’s hard to find a good chicken place around here.
The chef doesn’t sound very bright. What does it matter if he doesn’t like chicken as long as customers do? I’m not even sure I’d want to eat anything cooked by someone who doesn’t like chicken.
I love fried chicken, and I hate frying it, but the nearest place I can get good fried chicken is 20 miles away, and it ain’t that great. But I found a recipe on YouTube that is , bar none, the best fried chicken I have ever had. (best part -— there’s no talking in the video!)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MWlHuWmnyek
Everything’s in Korean or Chinese... How do you pull the recipe from that?
It has english amounts for the recipe. The rest is just visual. You have to put on the captions function. They’re in english.
Of the places I’ve tried that primarily serve chicken fingers, Foosackley’s is the best. Raisin’ Cane’s is OK. Zaxby’s meh. People I know say Guthrie’s is the best - tried it once, had heartburn for a week from the grease. And I’m concerned about all the poor fingerless chickens running around.
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