HT Talks Tech with Dave’s Hot Chicken
Dave’s Hot Chicken is testing innovative technologies at its Chino Hills, California, location — a mid-volume store operated by President and COO Jim Bitticks, who is also a franchisee.
The location is piloting
- Atossa robotic arm: Improves food quality and eases employee workloads by automating tasks like frying.
- Self-service kiosks: Offers guests an alternative way to order, resulting in 25% adoption rates and check averages 4–6% higher than at the counter.
- Digital marketing boards: Engages guests with enticing visuals and promotions while testing the impact on sales compared to locations without these screens.
When it comes to technology, “the journey is very iterative,” explained CTO Leon Davoyan. “We have learned a few things. We are taking our learnings and translating that into future stores… until we feel good about what the Dave’s of the Future should be.”
Known for its Nashville-style spicy fried chicken, Dave’s Hot Chicken has over 200 locations open and more than 700 franchised units sold across the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom and beyond.
Placement Matters
“When we first started testing kiosks, our intention was not to remove the cashier from their position," explained Davoyan. "It was to provide the guests with another way of ordering their food, if they didn’t want to talk to a cashier or a person, or they wanted to browse the menu and understand our offerings and take their time ordering.”
Placement of the kiosk is very important. In the Chino Hills location, the kiosk is inline with the front counter.
“We want to make ... the guest is comfortable being on their own. We also want the cashier to be within a stone's throw, so that if we see someone struggling to place or complete their order, the cashier can come over and help them complete their transaction,” Davoyan explained.
Dave’s is already seeing some “shocking ROI,” Davoyan noted. About 25% of guests choose to order from the kiosks vs. the cashier. Checks are 4 to 6% higher than those placed at the counter.
Next on its tech to-do list: to pilot an energy management system. Many of the Dave’s franchisees choose a second-generation location because they’re cheaper and faster to get open, Bitticks explained. However, they are older and usually have inefficient HVAC, refrigeration and energy management.
Time will tell if these solutions will be rolled out chainwide.
“All of these things we are doing are for the brand, for making Dave’s better. The overarching goal is to create this great business model for our franchisees to be very successful,” Bitticks said.
Flexibility Required
When dealing with technology pilots, it is important to be flexible, Davoyan stressed. “Oftentimes in technology, you put something in and you expect a certain result. And then guests behave differently … Now we're seeing how the guests are behaving towards those changes and then (we are) adapting and changing.”
Performance Matters
To support its rapid expansion, the brand is rolling out Qu and QSR Automations, respectively. Its previous POS struggled with keeping pace. “The more stores we added, the slower that connection got,” Davoyan said.
“We couldn’t get a flash sale report until 8 am Pacific time, and that was something we wanted before 6 am, so that the early birds could look at yesterday’s sales. We couldn’t do it because the data was trickling in so slow that we couldn’t publish it,” he explained.
Dave’s realized the need to shift gears and to partner with a POS provider that could easily scale to 1,000 locations and deliver reliable data.
“The POS is the nucleus of your store technology, because everything either connects into the POS or flows out of the POS,” he said.
Qu’s unified commerce platform has real-time data management, offline resiliency with edge computing and an easy to connect API.
QSR Automations’ ConnectSmart Kitchen® helps the team work more efficiently, and the solution can easily be customized. For example, Dave’s can highlight deviations from the default order. “The team sees that there's something highlighted on the screen and can pay attention to that,” which has helped improve order accuracy, Davoyan added.
QSR Automation’s Order Ready Board reduces interruptions for expo staff by providing real-time order status updates to delivery drivers and guests, improving efficiency and employee satisfaction.
To date, about 10% of Dave’s locations have the Qu unified commerce platform and QSR Automations solutions. It has begun retrofitting existing locations. “We are moving very quickly; our goal is to have 100% of our stores retrofitted within two years,” Davoyan said.
Dave’s also uses the Bikky customer data platform (CDP) to anonymously track guest behavior and identifies trends through credit card token data. For instance, when Dave’s launched its cauliflower product, data revealed that many new customers returned to try the chicken.
“Our core audience loves the brand and creates content for us,” Davoyan said, highlighting Dave’s vibrant social media presence. By combining guest insights with user-generated content, the chain continues to deepen customer engagement and loyalty.