Fry the Coop’s recipe for growth combines hospitality, hustle, and hot chicken
Fry the Coop began as a bold idea in Chicago’s fast-casual food scene, building its reputation on chicken sandwiches made with premium ingredients, high standards, and an obsessive focus on hospitality. What started as a tiny, underfunded storefront on Chicago’s South Side has quickly become one of the city’s breakout restaurant success stories.
“I started the business in 2017 after leaving a corporate job I hated,” begins Joseph (Joe) Fontana, Owner. “I realized that if you can find something you’re good at, something you genuinely love, and something that can make money, that’s the sweet spot. For me, that was food.
“I’ve always loved restaurants and the experience of bringing people together over a meal. I’m not a chef, but I knew I could make great food, and I became obsessed with the idea of creating a high-quality chicken sandwich in a fast-casual setting. At the time, most fast-food chicken felt cheap and uninspired, and I thought there was room for something better.
“The challenge was that I had no restaurant experience,” he continues. “Before opening, I spent years reading books, taking classes, watching YouTube videos, and learning everything I could about the business. Even then, getting started was tough. A funding deal collapsed at the last minute, so I opened the first location on a shoestring budget: about $63,000 total.
“When we opened, we had no sign, no marketing budget, and barely any customers. But we focused on making every sandwich count and treating every guest like gold. Things changed after we hired a publicist and landed local TV coverage. Suddenly we had lines out the door and demand we could barely keep up with. It was chaotic, but we kept improving, hired more staff, and reinvested everything back into the business. Within a year, we opened our second location, and the brand really took off.”
As Fry the Coop continued to grow, it scaled carefully and deliberately, reinvesting profits into expansion and evolving into a multi-million-dollar operation with ambitions beyond Chicago.
“We kept using the same formula as we grew,” Joe shares. “Within about eight years, we grew to ten locations, all company-owned. Today the business does around $15 million a year in revenue, which is something I’m incredibly proud of. I found out that only about one percent of small businesses worldwide ever exceeds $10 million in annual revenue, and we’ve been over that mark for four straight years now.”
The next big step for the business is building a 10,000-square-foot commissary headquarters, which will include a restaurant, a large production kitchen, and office space.
Tried and tested strategy
In terms of Fry the Coop’s menu, when Joe first started, he modeled it on In-N-Out Burger’s approach: very simple and very focused. “The chicken sandwich was always the hero of the story,” he shares, “and alongside that we just had fries and drinks. That was basically it.
“In time, we started adding things cautiously and intentionally. For example, we introduced chicken nuggets a few years later because we realized families wanted to bring their kids in, but a giant chicken sandwich wasn’t exactly practical for them. My own kids were kind of the test subjects for that idea.”
Indeed, over the years, the brand has experimented with a lot of different menu items, but Joe has learned that something only works if every part of the business supports it. “Customers have to love it, it has to sell at a profitable price, sourcing has to be reliable, logistics have to work, and even the finance side matters,” he explains.
“So, we’ve tried things that didn’t work, and when they didn’t, we took them off the menu and moved on. I think that’s a huge part of building a business; you test ideas, fail, learn from them, and keep pivoting until you find what works. The biggest thing is listening to your customers.”
When evaluating sites for development, one of the biggest things Joe looks at is traffic count; ideally, locations with 30,000 cars a day or more. “A lot of restaurants love small downtown districts in suburban towns, and for some concepts that works well. But for us,” he elaborates, “I’d rather be on a busy road that people naturally pass every day than tucked away in a trendy downtown area. I think convenience wins over the long term. A restaurant might be popular enough early on that people will go out of their way to visit, especially when it’s new and exciting. But five or ten years later, when you’re no longer the newest spot in town, convenience becomes a huge factor. Another major element is understanding where customers are coming from. Years ago, restaurants could survive being busy only at lunch or only at dinner, but operating costs are so much higher now that you really need steady business all day long.”
Over the years, Joe’s role has evolved alongside Fry the Coop’s growth. Being in the dining room and interacting with customers is the part of business that energizes him the most. “I went from being a restaurant owner, to a restaurateur, and now somehow I’m a CEO with 215 employees and multiple businesses under the company umbrella,” he shares.
“Honestly, being a CEO is mostly just solving problems all day. As such, I’ve realized my strengths are really in marketing, branding, and connecting with people, not running operations with military-level precision. So long term, I’d love to bring in someone more operations-focused and let me do more of what I’m naturally good at. Right now, though, I’m still kind of winging it; so pray for me,” he jokes.
Creative collaborations
Alongside building the commissary and headquarters, Joe continually explores potential opportunities and new restaurant sites. “We’ve also found that people really love collaborations,” he adds, “so we do quite a few of them with other well-known restaurants around the Chicago area. This year alone we’ve got four collaborations planned.
“One of the most exciting is with a popular local donut company. We’re creating a donut fried chicken sandwich using one of their glazed donuts as the bun for a one-day special. It’s a little over the top, but those are often the ideas people get most excited about.
“We’ve also got a collaboration coming up with a pizza company. We’re supplying them with our chicken, sauces, and seasonings, and they’ll be creating special pizzas inspired by our menu. It’s a fun way to introduce both brands to new customers while giving people something unique they can’t get every day.
“Over the next five years, I think we’ll eventually raise a proper investment round. Up to this point, we’ve largely funded growth ourselves. Once we reach around $20 million in revenue, I think the timing will be right to bring in outside investment and accelerate the business in a much bigger way.
“Our goal is to grow from ten locations to somewhere in the region of 30 or 40 restaurants over the next five years. There’s going to be a lot of hard work and plenty of challenges along the way, but the exciting part is building the team that can help make it happen.
“Looking further ahead, our ten-year vision is to build a business doing around $200 million a year in revenue. At that point, we’d have some interesting decisions to make, whether that’s expanding through franchising across the country or potentially selling the business,” he concludes. “For now, though, the focus is on building the right foundation, growing the brand the right way, and continuing to create something that people genuinely love.”