Wingstop

In nineteen ninety four, Antonio Swad opened a chicken wing restaurant in Garland, Texas. The menu had twelve flavours, a fryer, and almost nothing else. No burgers. No salads. No breakfast. Wings were scrap—the cheapest protein available. Poultry processors sold them for almost nothing after stripping breasts and thighs. Swad built an entire brand around the part nobody else wanted. A franchisee paid fifty thousand dollars upfront and three hundred to four hundred thousand for buildout. Then six percent royalty on gross sales plus four percent advertising—ten percent of everything monthly for the life of the franchise. By two thousand and twenty four, nearly two thousand locations operated. Fewer than fifty were corporate. The rest were someone else's money and risk. Digital ordering changed the economics. Over sixty percent of sales now come through the app. Digital orders are larger—customers spend more browsing a screen than standing at a counter.