Starbird's top-selling menu options are its four varieties of chicken salads, but the brand sells sandwiches and tenders, too.
Aaron Noveshen wants to get one thing straight: his newly franchised Starbird Chicken is not another chicken sandwich chain. Yes, it sells chicken sandwiches, but the 12-unit brand’s most popular menu items are its salads, of which there are four varieties.
“We’re not trying to compete in a sea of chicken sandwiches,” said Noveshen, Starbird’s founder and CEO.
Noveshen and the Culinary Edge, a food and beverage consultancy he created, launched Starbird in 2016 with the intent to grow something he could scale. Starbird counts Greg Dollarhyde, an industry veteran involved in the startup and expansion of a number of fast-casual chains including Zoe’s Kitchen, Veggie Grill and Baja Fresh, as an early investor and managing member. It secured a $12 million investment in November 2021, with private equity firm KarpReilly leading the funding round.
The brand has since expanded in California with traditional restaurants and in ghost kitchens, and started franchising in September.
Starbird CEO Aaron Noveshen says he wants to "grow a company that is valued and creates value."
Calling Starbird “the poster child for chef-quality food that can be executed at scale,” Noveshen is targeting western states during the initial franchise push.
Starbird promotes an omni-channel approach to driving sales, he continued. More than 80 percent of its sales come through digital channels, and none of the open units have drive-thrus.
“We’re able to drive incredible sales per square foot at a lower investment than having to get large pads to have drive-thrus,” he said. The brand operates inline and endcap restaurants in addition to non-traditional locations such as ghost kitchens, stadiums and the San Francisco International Airport.
A dizzying number of chicken franchises—sandwich-focused or otherwise—have popped up in recent years as big-name brands began competing in an unofficial war to sell the best chicken sandwich since late 2019, with franchises such as Popeyes, Burger King, Chick-fil-A and McDonald’s debuting new products. California-based Daddy’s Chicken Shack launched in 2018 and has since signed deals for dozens of franchises across the country, while fellow West Coast concept Dave’s Hot Chicken went from one to 100 locations since it started franchising in 2019.
2022 was a tough year to be a chicken franchise, Noveshen said, because of lack of supply and cost inflation. Moving into 2023, he isn’t as concerned about chicken prices because they’ve already been decreasing. He’s more concerned with continuing to increase store traffic.
Starbird’s 2022 sales grew 25 percent, largely because of an increase in traffic and with a chunk of that bump coming from a higher average check.
In building the menu, the Starbird team tested more than 100 recipes to create the perfect chicken. The result, Noveshen said, is second to none. Restaurants prepare almost everything in house, from the chicken brine to salad dressings and sauces—things that someone “can’t manufacture and get the freshness of the herbs that are blended in at the last minute,” he said.
Noveshen touted Starbird’s loyal customer base, which helped the brand reach a $3.6 million average unit volume in 2021. When interviewed in November, Noveshen said that number was “old news” and average sales had surpassed 2021 numbers.
“We have a great connectivity with the community. We take care of and empower our team members every day,” he said. “We promote positivity every day and it makes us very attractive to the community.”
Noveshen plans to open another six corporate restaurants and have five development partners “locked and loaded” by the end of 2023. “There’s no ‘We’re here to conquer the world’ type thing,” he said. “We want to grow a company that is valued and creates value.”
To prepare for the anticipated growth in and eventually outside of California, Starbird invested in infrastructure to secure a robust supply chain, marketing department and operations team. The cost to open a Starbird franchise ranges from $1.14- to $1.59 million.
Like many franchisors, Starbird’s biggest challenge to come will be investing time and money in working with the right people to grow the brand, Noveshen said. The company wants to ensure it works with operators who will uphold standards “that we’ve worked very hard to create,” he said.
“We’re in the hospitality business. We’re creating opportunities for the team members who work for the company, so they need to be passionate about growing and investing in people,” Noveshen said. “All the while maintaining great, high-quality standards for food that is truly differentiated from the pack.”
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Starbird's 2022 sales grew 75 percent; the correct sales growth figure is 25 percent.