Chicken Power Rankings
The CSW Score answers the question the whole category is built on — who is winning? — using only published figures. Every component comes from a company disclosure, a regulatory filing or an industry data provider. Nothing here is a vibe.
| # | Brand | CSW Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chick-fil-A | 74 |
| 2 | Dave's Hot Chicken | 71 |
| 3 | Raising Cane's | 65 |
| 4 | Layne's Chicken Fingers | 65 |
| 5 | El Pollo Loco | 59 |
| 6 | Slim Chickens | 54 |
| 7 | Pollo Campero | 54 |
| 8 | KFC U.S. | 48 |
| 9 | Bojangles | 46 |
| 10 | Chicken Salad Chick | 46 |
| 11 | Zaxby's | 45 |
| 12 | Golden Chick | 45 |
| 13 | Wingstop | 43 |
| 14 | Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen | 42 |
| 15 | Church's Texas Chicken | 40 |
A dash means the component has not been published for that brand. Weights are renormalised over available components, so a brand is never penalised for a disclosure it does not control — but it is also never credited for a number nobody has published.
Brand by brand
#1 Chick-fil-A
Category leader 744 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Chick-fil-A is not competing in the same economic universe as the rest of the category. A $9.2M average unit volume on a six-day operating week means a single Chick-fil-A generates roughly what four Popeyes generate, and it does it with the industry's most sought-after operator pipeline.
#2 Dave's Hot Chicken
Hypergrowth 714 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Dave's is the fastest-growing large chain in America and the single most important development story in chicken real estate. Sales grew 51% and units 52.3% in 2025, Roark bought control at a $1B valuation, and the brand opened eight restaurants in one day in 2026.
#3 Raising Cane's
Compounding 654 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Cane's is the only brand in the category compounding double-digit unit growth on top of a $6M+ AUV, and it does it with a four-item menu and no franchisees to manage. That combination — corporate control, extreme menu simplicity, elite volumes — is why it has moved from regional curiosity to the clearest structural threat to Chick-fil-A in a decade.
#4 Layne's Chicken Fingers
Hypergrowth 653 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Layne's doubled its footprint in 2025 and is on track to do it again in 2026. The tell is who is signing: franchisees of Wendy's and Arby's, not first-time owners.
#5 El Pollo Loco
Steady Stale 594 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
El Pollo Loco is the category's counter-programming: flame-grilled, Mexican-inspired, and largely insulated from the fried-chicken arms race. It is also the smallest growth story here — nine openings in a year against a 500-unit base, and flat full-year comps of +0.1%.
#6 Slim Chickens
Expanding Stale 543 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Slim Chickens has quietly built the largest committed pipeline-to-current-units ratio in the category — more than 1,200 units in development against roughly 300 open. That ratio is the single most useful number for anyone selling sites or capital to this brand, and it is also the number most likely to disappoint: signed area-development agreements convert to open restaurants at well under 100% across franchising generally.
#7 Pollo Campero
Growing Stale 543 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Campero grows where the demographic screens of national chicken brands don't point. It is one of the few chains in the category whose site model is genuinely trade-area-specific rather than formulaic, and it is drawing millions of monthly visits in markets where the national brands under-index..
#8 KFC U.S.
Turnaround Stale 484 of 5 components published · 4-point net-closure adjustment applied · Full brand profile →
KFC U.S. is shrinking and improving at the same time, which is not a contradiction — it is what a portfolio cleanup looks like.
#9 Bojangles
Expanding Stale 463 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Bojangles is running the most interesting portability experiment in the category. A brand built on Carolina breakfast biscuits and sweet tea is now signing 20- and 40-unit agreements in Ohio, Texas and Nevada — markets with no cultural memory of the brand.
#10 Chicken Salad Chick
Growing Stale 463 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Chicken Salad Chick is the only brand in this database that isn't really in the chicken sandwich war — it is a lunch-daypart, dine-in, non-fried concept with a $1.48M AUV and almost no drive-thru dependency. That makes it a poor comp for the rest of the category and an excellent one for anyone underwriting inline retail: the brand adds units at 13% a year without competing for the pads that Cane's, Chick-fil-A and Dave's are bidding up..
#11 Zaxby's
Steady Stale 454 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Zaxby's spent the last several years fixing operations rather than chasing unit count, and the payoff is a $2.71M AUV that sits second only to Chick-fil-A and Cane's among franchised chicken chains. Crossing 1,000 units and then walking into the Bronx and the Upper East Side is a genuine test: Zaxby's has never had to make a 2,800 SF, seat-constrained, no-drive-thru box work at Southeast economics.
#12 Golden Chick
Growing Stale 453 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Golden Chick is the best case study in this database for how a regional brand actually scales: not through a national franchise-sales push, but by finding two or three operator families and letting them compound. SXThree is on a path to 100 units by 2030; the Korpal brothers converted a second-generation Subway family operation into a 13-unit Golden Chick development agreement across Houston and Beaumont.
#13 Wingstop
Growth vs. traffic split 435 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Wingstop is the sharpest divergence story in the category: development is still exceptional and comps have fallen off a cliff. The brand opened 493 net units in fiscal 2025 (+19.2%) and another 102 in a single quarter of 2026, while domestic same-store sales fell 7.5% in Q2 2026 and management cut full-year comp guidance to -4% to -6%.
#14 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen
Under pressure 423 of 5 components published · 4-point net-closure adjustment applied · Full brand profile →
Popeyes is the clearest example of why unit count is a lagging indicator. The system is still enormous — 3,578 restaurants across the U.S.
#15 Church's Texas Chicken
Stabilizing 404 of 5 components published · Full brand profile →
Church's spent a decade shrinking; in 2025 it stopped. The U.S.
How current are these rankings?
A ranking is only as current as the oldest figure inside it. Every score component below is dated, and a brand is flagged on the age of its oldest input rather than an average that would let one overdue number hide behind four fresh ones. Review windows are set by how often the publisher republishes the figure — comps are quarterly, AUV and growth rates are annual — and are listed on the methodology page. CSW does not roll a figure forward or estimate the gap; an overdue number keeps its published value and says how old it is.
| Brand | Component | Published for | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Golden Chick | Unit Economics | 2023 FDD | Stale |
| Pollo Campero | Unit Economics | 2024 FDD | Stale |
| Slim Chickens | Unit Economics | 2025 FDD | Stale |
| Slim Chickens | System Momentum | FY2024 | Stale |
| Bojangles | Unit Economics | FY2024 | Stale |
| Chicken Salad Chick | Unit Economics | FY2024 | Stale |
| Zaxby's | Unit Economics | YE2024 | Stale |
| Zaxby's | System Momentum | FY2024 | Stale |
| Chicken Salad Chick | Real Estate Strength | May 2025 | Stale |
| El Pollo Loco | Consumer Demand | Q4 2025 | Stale |
| KFC U.S. | Consumer Demand | YE2025 | Stale |
| Chicken Salad Chick | Expansion | May 2025 | Due for review |
8 of the 15 ranked brands rest on at least one figure past its review window, and 0 on a figure whose as-of date was never recorded. An undated figure is treated as a problem rather than as current — the site cannot vouch for the age of a number it did not date.
Unrated brands
These 7 brands are tracked in the database but not scored: fewer than three of the five components have been published. CSW does not fill those gaps with estimates. Several of them — Layne's, Golden Chick, Huey Magoo's, Houston TX Hot Chicken — are among the fastest-growing concepts in the country, which is precisely why the disclosure gap is worth closing.
Bonchon
0 of 5 components published — none.
Chicken Express
0 of 5 components published — none.
Hooters
0 of 5 components published — none.
Houston TX Hot Chicken
0 of 5 components published — none.
Huey Magoo's
2 of 5 components published — Real Estate Strength, System Momentum.
Jollibee (U.S.)
0 of 5 components published — none.
Krispy Krunchy Chicken
1 of 5 components published — Expansion.
Sources
Every figure on this page is attributed. CSW does not publish estimates as facts — where a number is unavailable it is shown as “—”, and where a figure is derived arithmetically from two published figures it is marked as derived.
- [1] Wingstop Inc. / PR Newswire — Wingstop Inc. Reports Fiscal Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results (2026-07-29)
- [2] TheStreet — Classic fried chicken chain closes over 300 restaurants (2026-07)
- [3] CNBC — KFC leans into boneless chicken, new drinks as chain tries to regain market share (2026-06-15)
- [4] Restaurant Dive — Burger King sales surge, but Popeyes faces uphill battle (2026-08)