CUSTOMER STORY

Dave’s Hot Chicken: Managing a Red-Hot Expansion with Leasecake

Hear Dave’s Hot Chicken’s success story as they are on a mission to open 1000 locations.

Background

When Dannon Shiff joined Dave’s Hot Chicken nearly five years ago as SVP of Real Estate, the brand was already poised for explosive growth. Today, the company operates 340+ locations across the U.S., Middle East, and Europe, and is on pace to exceed 400 locations by the end of the year—adding between 140 and 155 new restaurants in the next 12 months.

The aggressive, strategic expansion required more than just opening new stores—it demanded a robust operational infrastructure to manage a complex portfolio of franchise agreements, leases, and landlord relationships across 75 franchisees worldwide.

Drawing from experience at both small brands and major chains like Buffalo Wild Wings, Noodles & Company, and landlord-side operations at Macerich, Shiff knew that the right systems implemented early would pay dividends later.

Dave’s Hot Chicken is undergoing remarkable growth, with plans to expand to 1,000 locations in the near future.

With high stakes involved, missing a lease renewal or overlooking a financial obligation could jeopardize their progress. To address this, Dave’s Hot Chicken required a robust solution to keep corporate leases in order and to offer franchisees a tool to ensure they remain on track.

Challenges

In the early days, Dave’s Hot Chicken was running its real estate operations like many young, fast-growing brands—storing leases in Dropbox folders, relying on franchisees to track critical dates in Excel or Google Sheets, and searching through PDFs whenever someone needed a specific term or clause. It was a patchwork system that worked when they were small, but wasn’t built to handle the pace and complexity of what was coming.

Shiff had seen this movie before. He knew that brands scaling toward hundreds of locations couldn’t afford to “figure it out later” when it came to foundational infrastructure. The stakes were simply too high. Without a central system, the team risked missing renewal deadlines, making costly mistakes on rent adjustments, and losing time on manual searches that could be spent opening new stores. “If we don’t have the data organized and in the right place, we’re just guessing—and we can’t afford to guess about information we already have. If it’s not accessible when we need it immediately from anywhere in the world, we can’t make fast, confident decisions,” Shiff explained. In one case, a landlord attempted to apply a rent increase a full year early—something that could have cost thousands of dollars if the team hadn’t been able to prove the correct date. “Our lease showed a rent increase on a specific date, but the landlord thought it was a year earlier and tried to charge us the extra rent. We pulled the data straight from Leasecake, took a screenshot, and sent it over—dates, dollars, everything—so they could see exactly what was correct.”

The team at Dave’s Hot Chicken was starting to build the company’s growth engine with the long term in mind—putting processes, data systems, and operational guardrails in place for a brand destined to operate at massive scale. And Shiff knew that implementing Leasecake would be a crucial part of that blueprint. To support aggressive expansion and protect the business, a professional lease management system wasn’t optional. It was a critical piece of the puzzle, and it needed to be prioritized alongside every other growth-driving initiative.

For what I believe is a very affordable cost per location, having accurate, organized lease data and a true backstop for our franchisees is invaluable. It’s not another expense they have to justify—it’s a tool that saves time, prevents mistakes, and lets us focus on running and growing the brand. Leasecake isn’t just software; it’s a partner that helps us operate smarter at every stage of growth.

Dannon Shiff

Senior Vice President of Real Estate, Dave’s Hot Chicken

Solution

When it came time to strengthen the company’s real estate foundation, Shiff and his team turned to Leasecake as the platform that could keep pace with Dave’s Hot Chicken’s rapid expansion. More than just a database, Leasecake became the single source of truth for every lease, amendment, and critical date across the system. With mobile access, anyone—from the corporate office to the field—could pull up information instantly, no matter where they were. “It’s the right tool for a brand growing as fast as we are.”

The impact was immediate, but it was during two major milestones that Leasecake truly proved its value.

The first came when Dave’s Hot Chicken acquired six corporate-owned restaurants from its founders in Los Angeles. The process involved transferring leases, notifying landlords, verifying terms, and ensuring every document was in order. Because Leasecake already housed all lease files and key data, the real estate team could deliver what attorneys needed in minutes rather than days. Where gaps existed, the system made them obvious, allowing the team to track down missing amendments before they became roadblocks. Shiff and his team even used Cakebot, Leasecake’s built-in AI, to quickly locate specific clauses, making it easy to confirm details without flipping through page after page. “It was a really easy handoff to the attorneys,” Shiff recalled. “It was less onerous on the real estate team because everything we needed was at our fingertips.”

The second test came with the Roark Capital transaction. Preparing for the level of scrutiny that comes with joining a large private equity portfolio could have been an all-consuming project. Instead, Leasecake made it straightforward. Store-level data—like lease start dates, term lengths, and average lease life—was already organized and ready to share. There was no need to build spreadsheets from scratch or spend hours verifying numbers; the information was simply exported from the system, accurate and complete.

It’s also a big part of Dave’s Hot Chicken mission to be recognized as the franchisor of choice, as it helps new franchisee recruiting to support them on their growth journey. With several leadership team members being franchisees themselves, they lean into modern lease management technology to ensure systemwide success and growth, so franchisees don’t get tripped up with real estate challenges.

Beyond this mission and those milestone events, Leasecake has become a day-to-day efficiency driver. Automating alerts for renewals and rent changes ensures nothing slips through the cracks, and routine administrative tasks that once took hours now happen in the background. Franchisees feel supported knowing the corporate team has their back, while internal collaboration has improved because accounting, legal, and development teams can all access the same accurate data without constant back-and-forth emails. For Shiff, the payoff is clear: more time spent in the field with franchisees, and less time buried in administrative work—helping the brand open new stores faster and with fewer operational bottlenecks. “The less time we spend chasing documents or answering the same email three times, the more time we can be in restaurants and markets hitting our opening dates faster with our franchisees. That’s where we add real value.”

Results

Faster, Smoother Transactions

From the six-store buyback to the Roark Capital deal, Leasecake gave the team instant access to every lease detail they needed. Documents were complete, organized, and export-ready, allowing attorneys, auditors, and landlords to get what they needed without delays.

Stronger Collaboration Across Teams

By giving accounting, legal, and development teams direct access to the same, up-to-date lease data, Leasecake eliminated endless email chains and manual file sharing. Everyone works from the same accurate information, so decisions can be made faster and with more confidence. Franchisees also benefit, knowing the corporate team has a backstop in place for critical lease events.

Time Saved on Lease Administration

Since implementing Leasecake, Shiff and his team have reduced time spent on administrative lease tasks by an estimated 40%—freeing dozens of hours each month to focus on franchisee support and market development.

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