Subway’s parent company, Roark Capital Group, has purchased the celebrity-backed restaurant Dave’s Hot Chicken.
Behind almost every fast food restaurant chain nowadays is a much bigger company that owns a handful of other brands in the industry.
Subway’s parent company, Roark Capital Group, also owns the likes of Arby’s, Auntie Anne’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Dunkin, and even Jimmy John’s.
In June 2025, Roark announced that it’s adding Dave’s Hot Chicken to its portfolio in a massive $1 billion deal.
According to AP News, the restaurant has 400 locations worldwide and specializes in Nashville-style hot chicken. With the deal, Dave’s CEO and all of its founders will remain in the company to lead menu innovation, food quality, operations, and marketing.
Dave’s Hot Chicken includes massive celebrity investors
Since its launch in 2017, Dave’s Hot Chicken has garnered investments from a handful of notable celebrities, including Canadian rapper Drake, Samuel L Jackson, former NFL player Michael Strahan, and others.
The former of which has partnered with the company multiple times to give away free chicken sliders on October 24, his birthday, through the Dave’s Hot Chicken mobile app. Alongside Drake’s investment came the company’s first international restaurant in Toronto, Canada.
It’s unknown whether or not the investors were bought out in the $1B deal, so we’ll have to wait to see if Drake gives away sliders to celebrate his birthday in 2025.
What could happen now, however, is a massive growth in total restaurants and potentially even an item collab with Subway.
Over the last few years, Subway has launched a handful of different snacks called footlong sidekicks, with some of them featuring items from Roark’s other companies.
At launch, they offered a footlong pretzel from Auntie Anne’s and a churro from Cinnabon.
