Chicken Salad Chick, the Alabama-born restaurant that turned the summertime picnic and potluck standard on its head, is coming to Tucson.
Franchise operators LJ Zielke and Caleb Reynolds plan to open five Chicken Salad Chick restaurants in the Tucson area in the next 3½ to four years, Reynolds said.
"Our target markets are Arizona Pavilions, Casa Adobes, the east side, Oro Valley" and Tucson Marketplace on the south side, Reynolds said.
Chicken Salad Chick is opening five locations in the greater Tucson area over the next four years.
The first location is expected to open around November, he said.
The Tucson restaurants will be the furthest west for the company, which launched in Auburn, Alabama, in 2008 and started franchising four years later.
By the end of last year, the company had more than 300 locations including 42 that they opened across 13 states in 2025, according to Watt Poultry, which tracks poultry industry trends and news.
Chicken Salad Chick last August announced plans to expand into Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Utah.
Reynolds said he and Zielke, who owns trade schools around the country, were initially thinking of opening locations in the Phoenix area. But the process was taking too long, so they turned their attention to Tucson.
Reynolds, who works in real estate, said this will be his and Zielke's first restaurant venture. But he couldn't resist the idea of bringing Chicken Salad Chick to Arizona.
"I grew up with the brand," said Reynolds, who was originally from Auburn, Alabama, where founders Stacy and Kevin Brown opened their first restaurant. "I've always had a great personal connection with the brand; my mother was actually the CPA for (Stacy Brown). So whenever we relocated out to Arizona, we were looking around and we're like, this would do really well out here."
Chicken Salad Chick has more than a dozen varieties, many of them named after friends of the founder, including the dill-heavy Dill-icious Divas, the sweet and nutty Cranberry Kelli, the onion-forward Dixie Chick and the tropical fruity Luau Lydia.
Side dishes include pasta salad, fruit and broccoli salad, and daily soups include broccoli cheese and creamy chicken and wild rice. Featured desserts go from buttercream frosted cookies to cake.
Chicken Salad Chick is opening five restaurants in the greater Tucson area within the next four years.
Chicken Salad Chick has locations throughout the Midwest and Southeast as far as Florida. A few years ago, it made a big push into Texas followed by inroads in Denver, Colorado, in 2023, and in New Mexico in 2024.
This week, the chain signed a franchising agreement for locations in the Las Vegas area as part of its Southwest push.
