A Chick-fil-A in a mall did $14 million last year

Author

Andy Moore
April 11, 2026

Hello!

This week we’re talking:

  • Chick-fil-A’s future growth

  • Chili’s jump up the casual dining rankings

  • Butter chicken tacos

Read on…

3 Numbers

8.6%

Same-store sales growth for Kura Sushi in its most recent fiscal quarter. The company also reported a 23% jump in revenue on this week’s earnings call. Kura — a concept that offers pay-by-the-plate sushi served on a conveyor belt (which would have bankrupted several of my friends in our mid-twenties) — cited a streamlined reservations system and a buzzy Nintendo promotion for the sales jump.

$5.5 billion

2025 sales for Chili’s, a 20.6% year-over-year increase. What makes that figure especially bonkers is that Chili’s did it by slinging fajitas in its existing stores — the chain didn’t open any new restaurants in 2025, instead driving up its average unit volumes by $800,000. Chili's is now the second-largest casual dining concept in the country, leapfrogging Olive Garden and trailing only Texas Roadhouse.

$4 million

2025 average unit volumes at Culver’s, a 9.2% jump year-over-year. The chain added 44 locations last year, crossing the 1,000-unit mark for the first time. Stronger sales likely led to better profitability, with food costs staying stable (in an inflationary environment) and labor costs declining slightly — from 32.5% to 31.7%.

2 Big Stories

  1. Chick-fil-A released its updated Franchise Disclosure Document, giving its annual peek behind the curtain on its sales numbers. Via QSR Magazine:

On to how Chick-fil-A restaurants performed in 2025. The brand’s store-level numbers have moderated following a growth boom during COVID and amid the industry’s overall challenges to drive traffic after years of inflation. Yet they remain well above competitors at scale (and being open six days a week).

This past year, of the roughly 2,302 domestic freestanding or drive-thru-only restaurants open for at least a full calendar year … the average annual sales volume was $9,161,239, with 1,120 of those restaurants (49 percent) hitting the mark or better. About 34 percent posted annual sales below $8,180,000; roughly 33 percent were between that and $10,020,000; and 33 percent or so were in excess of $10,020,000.

The highest-earning Chick-fil-A in 2025 was $20,048,032.

The drive-thru AUV figures have tracked as follows:

  • 2020: $7.096 million

  • 2021: $8.142 million

  • 2022: $8.51 million

  • 2023: $9.275 million

  • 2024: $9.227 million

  • 2025: $9.087 million

Chick-fil-A included results from 201 domestic mall locations as well. The median annual sales volume of those were $3,356,330. Average annual sales volume was $4,579,894. The highest and lowest annual sales volumes were $14,408,747, and $1,312,752, respectively.

Not to be missed in that recap … Chick-fil-A did over $14 million in a mall location last year. (I’m not sure how that’s physically possible.)

The chain opened a net 179 franchised and company-owned locations in 2025, and it’s now nearing $24 billion in systemwide annual sales.

As QSR mentioned, while Chick-fil-A’s average unit volumes are still stratospheric, 2025 marks the second-straight year that drive-thru AUVs have dropped from 2023’s peak. The FDD is a legal document — it doesn’t go into reasons why, but the entire industry fought a consumer pullback last year, and Chick-fil-A is now battling a plethora of boneless chicken competitors.

And granted, this is based more off vibes than data, but Chick-fil-A seems to be attaining density in many of its more mature domestic markets. This will moderate growth. Fewer people now have to drive out of their way to get their Nugget fix.

Which is why I tend to think the coming Chick-fil-A international expansion is an underrated piece of the company’s growth story.

Internationally, there’s massive white space, along with billions of potential customers who enjoy fried chicken. Chick-fil-A’s competitors have already proven this out: KFC’s international numbers dwarf its domestic business. (The Wikipedia for “List of countries with KFC franchises” is a quality rabbit hole.) Popeyes is making an aggressive international push. Even relative newcomers like Dave’s Hot Chicken are expanding into Europe more quickly than most emerging concepts do in their growth cycle.

Chick-fil-A is still in the first inning of its international growth story. It entered Canada in 2019 and last year opened eight new locations in the market. It’s committed $100 million to a U.K. push and just opened stores in London and Leeds. And $75 million has been committed to growing in Singapore — the first location there opened in late 2025, representing the company’s first-ever toehold in Asia. The chain has said it plans to invest $1 billion and enter additional international markets by 2030.

Chick-fil-A’s international expansion won't happen overnight. But a company that does $14 million in a mall isn't going to leave the rest of the world on the table.

  1. Burger King has set a goal of one day surpassing McDonald’s as the nation’s number one burger chain. Via Nation’s Restaurant News:

Patrick Doyle, executive chairman of Burger King parent company Restaurant Brands International, was president of Domino's during the turnaround, and Tom Curtis, president of BK's U.S. system, was in an operations leadership role at the pizza chain.

During that Domino's 2009 turnaround campaign, Doyle was the pizza chain’s president and was the central character in its commercial in which consumers talked about how the product tasted like cardboard.

“You can either use negative comments to get you down, or you can use them to excite you and energize your process of making a better pizza. We did the latter,” Doyle said during the 2009 commercial.

Since then, Domino’s sales have increased from about $3.1 billion at the end of 2009 to $9.5 billion at the end of 2024…

With Doyle and Curtis now at Burger King and leading the chain’s Reclaim the Flame initiative — a multibillion investment launched in 2022 to enhance operations, remodel restaurants, improve the menu, marketing, and more — they have a new goal: to take over the top spot in the burger category, just as Domino's did with pizza.

Yes, that would mean taking over McDonald’s, which has dominated the category for 60 or so years.

“It's the right aspirational objective for the system,” Curtis said during parent company Restaurant Brands International’s investor day event in late February. “To be number one, you have to do everything better than everybody else. Your assets need to be best-in-class and your menu needs to be best-in-class.”

Kind of love the ambition here? Burger King has a long way to go — domestically, McDonald’s does roughly 5x in systemwide sales, and its real estate advantage is hard to overstate (its stores have sat on the proverbial corner of Main and Main for decades) — but BK is riding a good wave. Over the past four years, it’s improved operational scores, upgraded its signature sandwich, and remodeled over half its stores.

And it won hearts and minds by firing the Creepy King. An excellent start.

Other Headlines

Name That Chain!

You’ve got three guesses to name this week’s mystery chain:

  • Founded the same year as the first Star Wars movie, this chain got its start in a city better known for banking.

  • After years spent primarily growing in the South, it’s now opening stores in California and Arizona.

  • Its founder was a former Hardee’s franchisee who wanted to create a spicier, more flavorful chicken option.

Find the answer at the bottom of the email…

#Content Recs

Power Moves

Here are some notable C-suite moves from the past week:

Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next week.

NAME THAT CHAIN ANSWER: Bojangles

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