What Is Dave's Hot Chicken? The Story, the Founder & Who Owns It

A vegetarian chef trained at a three-Michelin-star restaurant invented one of America's most famous fried chicken chains out of a tent in a parking lot, on $900, and then sold it eight years later for a billion dollars. I want to be clear that I did not make a single word of that up. That is the actual Dave's Hot Chicken story, and it's a better arc than most of what's streaming this week.

That's the snippet you came for. The full story — the vegetarian who built a chicken empire, the Michelin pedigree, the rappers, and the billion-dollar exit — is worth the extra five minutes. I promise to keep the jokes to a manageable, family-sized portion.

What is Dave's Hot Chicken?

Dave's Hot Chicken is a fast-casual restaurant chain built around one thing done extremely well: Nashville-style hot chicken, served as crispy tenders and sliders at seven spice levels that climb from No Spice to the waiver-requiring Reaper. The menu is deliberately tiny — tenders, sliders, a few sides(the mac & cheese earns its keep), shakes, and slushers. That's the whole act.

The model is openly borrowed from In-N-Out: a short menu, no gimmicks, do the few things properly. The brand personality, though, is pure Los Angeles — graffiti logos, hand-drawn signage, hip-hop on the speakers, and a counter where the only real question is how brave you're feeling today. It's fast food with the swagger of a pop-up, which makes sense, because that is exactly what it was.

The parking-lot start (on $900)

On May 2, 2017, four friends set up a stand in a parking lot in East Hollywood. The entire operation was a tent, some picnic tables, a portable fryer, and roughly $900 of pooled money. They sold exactly one thing: a hot chicken combo plate. No sliders, no shakes, no seven-tier spice ladder. One item, take it or leave it. (People took it.)

Then the food blog Eater LA wrote them up, and the thing detonated. Lines reportedly stretched an entire block — for a tent. By late 2018 the pop-up had closed and reopened as a real restaurant in a strip mall on Western Avenue, which still runs today and gets treated, correctly, as the original Dave's. Not bad for a business that started with less money than most people spend on a phone.

Who is Dave — and why a vegetarian invented hot chicken

The "Dave" is Dave Kopushyan, the chef and one of four co-founders. The other three were Arman Oganesyan and brothers Tommy and Gary Rubenyan — all Armenian-American childhood friends. Here's the part nobody expects: Kopushyan trained under Thomas Keller at The French Laundry, the three-Michelin-star temple of American fine dining. He went from one of the best kitchens on Earth to a folding table in a parking lot, which is a career move most chefs only make in their anxiety dreams.

And the detail that makes the whole thing absurd in the best way: Dave was a vegetarian when he created the recipe. He was cooking at a vegetarian café in Echo Park at the time. So the signature Nashville hot chicken that built a billion-dollar brand was dialed in by a guy who wasn't eating it. If that isn't commitment to the craft, I don't know what is. (My apprentice-level theory: you taste more carefully when you're not allowed to snack on the evidence.)

The franchising deal and the celebrity investors

A viral tent is a great story but a terrible business plan. What turned it into a chain was a deal in fall 2019 with an investment group led by Bill Phelps — the co-founder and former CEO of Wetzel's Pretzels — alongside movie producer John Davis. Phelps became CEO and built the franchising machine, with a stated plan of 300-plus locations across the US and Canada. (For the record, they blew past that.)

Then the famous money arrived. Over its growth years, Dave's pulled in an investor roster that reads like a charity gala seating chart:

• Drake — the rapper, one of the highest-profile backers.
• Samuel L. Jackson — yes, that one.
• Maria Shriver, Michael Strahan, and Tom Werner (the TV producer and Red Sox chairman).
• Usher — not just an investor but a franchise owner, with stores in Georgia.

The celebrities did real marketing work — it's hard to scroll past a chicken chain Drake is invested in — but the engine underneath was always Phelps's franchising playbook and a product people would queue around a building for.

Did Dave's Hot Chicken sell? Who owns it now

Yes, and recently. In June 2025, the private-equity firm Roark Capital acquired Dave's Hot Chicken in a deal valued at $1 billion. Roark is a serious restaurant operator — its portfolio has included names like Subway and Inspire Brands — so Dave's landed in heavyweight company. From $900 in a parking lot to a billion-dollar valuation in eight years is, mathematically, one of the great returns in fast-food history.

Day to day, not much changed for you at the counter. The founders' leadership group stayed involved, and in January 2026 Jim Bitticks stepped in as the new CEO to run the next stretch of growth. The chicken, the seven heat levels, and the recipe Dave dialed in didn't suddenly get sent to a lab. Roark bought the thing that was working; smart buyers tend not to immediately break it.

Is it actually "Nashville style"? And how big is it now?

Yes — Dave's serves genuine Nashville-style hot chicken, even though the chain is pure Los Angeles. "Nashville style" describes the method, not a zip code: chicken brined, breaded, fried, then painted with a cayenne-heavy spice paste that fuses into the crust. If you searched "Dave's Nashville chicken" expecting a Tennessee institution, the honest answer is that it's a California love letter to a Nashville classic. Purists in Nashville will tell you the originals still do it best, and they're not entirely wrong — but Dave's is the one that brought a faithful version to the rest of the planet.

And it really is the planet now. From that one tent, Dave's grew to roughly 390 restaurants globally as of 2026, headquartered in Pasadena, California, with locations across the US, Canada, the UK, and the Middle East. One housekeeping note for a common question: Dave's chicken is halal in many markets, but the specifics vary by country and location, so check your local store rather than taking a blog's word for it (this one included).

My honest take

Here's the one opinion I'll plant a flag on: the backstory genuinely makes the chicken taste better, and I refuse to apologize for it. Knowing a French Laundry-trained vegetarian built this out of a tent on pocket change, that it grew on a food-blog write-up before it had a marketing budget, and that it went from $900 to a billion — it quietly upgrades a fast-food tender into something with a little romance to it.

None of which matters once you're at the counter, where the only real decision is how much heat your ego has signed you up for. If you're new, read the what-to-order guide first, sign up for the rewards program before you pay, and order one level below what you think you can handle. Four friends bet $900 that you'd come back for a second tender. A billion dollars later, that bet has aged like a very expensive bottle of buttermilk.