Dave’s Hot Chicken opened their 74th location this week: in the center of Midtown Manhattan, at 944 8th Avenue at West 55th Street. Jackson, Michael Strahan, Maria Shriver and Tom Werner, Chairman of the Boston Red Sox.

By Fall of 2021, Drake was a minority stakeholder in the company, whose investors also include Samuel L. It took less than a year for the company to open their first brick and mortar location and leave the parking lot behind. None of the founders had anticipated the meteoric rise of Dave’s - until developing the recipes for the brand, co-founder Dave Kopushyan had trained with famed chef Thomas Keller at California’s legendary French Laundry and had even been a vegetarian - but the flavor and the press and the social media presence all worked in their favor. Dave’s Hot Chicken set up in the parking lot near where the Rubenyans’ parents had a flower shop in a Los Angeles’s Thai Town neighborhood. As the story famously goes, the founders–Arman Oganesyan, Tommy and Gary Rubenyan, and chef Dave Kopushyan–together had $900 they used to buy a fryer the Rubenyans’ mother encouraged them to start their business the next day. A sparkling writeup in Eater’s LA edition that year turned the late night chicken spot into a must-try food haven. In 2017, Dave’s Hot Chicken was open less than a week before hungry masses started showing up.

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