The co-founder of the Chicken Salad Chick concept, Kevin Brown, died Nov. 21 after dealing with cancer for two years. He was 40.
In 2008, Brown co-founded the Auburn, Ala.-based Chicken Salad Chick with his friend and future wife, Stacy Melton — later Stacy Melton Brown. The company now has 43 locations across the Southeast.
"Kevin Brown has played such an important role in the growth and history of Chicken Salad Chick," CEO Scott Deviney said in a statement. "He displayed strength and courage in the hardest of times and served as an unforgettable example of determination and will power. He will be greatly missed by all."
Brown had stepped aside as CEO of Chicken Salad Chick in May after forming a partnership with Eagle Merchant Partners, the company said.
Chicken Salad Chick began as a home-based business in the kitchen of Stacy Brown.
“She knew that chicken salad was a staple of the South and that everyone likes it a little different than the next,” Kevin Brown told Nation’s Restaurant News earlier this year when the company was featured in NRN’s “Breakout Brands” issue for 2015.
Stacy Brown developed and began selling four varieties of chicken salad — a traditional called Classic Carol, one with grapes and apples called Fruity Fran, cayenne-spiked Jazzy Julie, and Fancy Nancy, which is a Fruity Fran with pecans.
She sold them “basically door to door,” Brown said, and within six weeks she had “created some raving fans loyal enough to create some standing weekly orders.” But the local health department said she couldn’t continue to fulfill orders out of her home, so she and Brown developed a business plan that would later lead to franchising the concept.
Chicken Salad Chick now offers customers a choice of 15 different chicken salads on a choice of five types of bread, a line of side dishes, tea and deli meats. About 40 percent of the salads are sold without any bread — just on lettuce — and 26 percent of sales are bulk orders of chicken salad by the pound, which contributes to the chain’s $13.76 average per-person check.
Brown also launched the Chicken Salad Chick Foundation after his cancer diagnosis in September 2014. The foundation provides funding to the American Cancer Society and has raised more than $250,000.
Brown was a native of Eufaula, Ala., and attended the University of Alabama. He spent 15 years in the sales and sales management industry before co-founding Chicken Salad Chick with Stacy.
A funeral service is scheduled for 2 p.m. CST Sunday, Nov. 29, at the Auburn United Methodist Church.
Contact Ron Ruggless at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @RonRuggless
