In 2017, four friends in Los Angeles scraped together $900 and set up a tiny food stand in an East Hollywood parking lot. They had no dining room, no PR campaign, and no real plan beyond frying spicy chicken and seeing who showed up. The crowds came fast. Word of mouth spread across the city, fueled by Instagram photos of fiery chicken tenders stacked on white bread and pickles. Within weeks, lines were wrapping around the block. Dave’s was definitely not just selling chicken. It was selling a movement.

The magic was in the simplicity. The menu offered basically one thing- chicken, spiced at levels ranging from “no spice” to “Reaper.”- The branding leaned into bold colors and street-style energy, making the whole experience feel more like a cult than a chain. Celebrity investors like Drake and Samuel L. Jackson jumped in, adding star power at just the right time. By 2022, Dave’s Hot Chicken was everywhere, from malls to neighborhood strip centers to its own stand-alone spots and no matter where it opened, the brand still felt like the same one that had people lining up in that first parking lot.

Today, the company is valued at over a billion dollars and growing at one of the fastest paces in the fast-casual world. There are now hundreds of locations across the United States, with international expansion underway in places like Canada and Dubai. What started as a late-night experiment in a parking lot has turned into one of the most talked-about restaurant chains of the decade. The recipe was never complicated. Keep the menu simple, keep the heat high, and keep the brand loud.