Charlotte-based Bojangles has big expansion plans once again.
What's happening: The popular chicken chain plans to open 270 new restaurants, bolstering its current restaurant total by 33%, Business North Carolina reported.
Last year, the company opened 40 new restaurants, including several in new markets like Dallas, Columbus and Orlando, per BNC.
LVP Restaurant Group LLC plans to open 20 Bojangles restaurants in Las Vegas, plus several more across the West.
Why it matters: Bojangles is a regional chain with a cult-like following. Its expansion plans will test the appetite for the brand in other parts of the country.
Flashback: Over the years, Bojangles, which was bought in 2019 by Jordan Co. and Durational Capital Management, has expanded into new markets with mixed results.
When the company went public in 2015, pressured by Wall Street's drive for growth, Bojangles laid out a plan that included filling out its core in the Carolinas, then expanding into new markets.
By the next year, however, a franchisee had closed eight restaurants in Orlando, I reported for the Observer in 2016.
"We love Florida. It's just not going to be anytime soon that we go back to Orlando," then-CEO Clifton Rutledge told analysts at the time.
