Tom Carr has only been leading Guthrie’s Golden Fried Chicken Fingers since January, but his experience in chicken is far more extensive.
The president and CEO joined the Auburn, Ala.-based chicken-fingers brand after spending the previous 10 years at another fast-growing concept — Chicken Salad Chick, most recently as chief marketing officer. Carr joined Guthrie’s on the heels of its 60th anniversary, which helped him identify the differentiator he needed to push the gas on his new company’s growth.
“Chicken Salad Chick was founded in Auburn and so I’ve known (Guthrie’s) because of that. We have a big footprint and connections here and I got to know it as a consumer many years ago,” Carr said during a recent interview. “Stepping away from Chicken Salad Chick was hard. It’s on a massive roll. But Guthrie’s has been a family business for 60 years and in a chicken-finger category that has a lot of big players, we are the original and that excited me.”
No question chicken fingers or tenders are in high demand at the moment. Consider the steep growth trajectory of Raising Cane’s, Slim Chickens and Zaxbys, for example, or legacy chains’ embrace of the offering, from KFC’s Original Tenders to McDonald’s McCrispy Strips.
The chicken category continues to far outpace most other categories in the industry, including a 5.3% year-over-year jump in sales in 2025, according to Technomic’s recently released Top 500. Guthrie’s ended the year just outside of the Top 500, at No. 537, but should blow past the threshold if it keeps up its current momentum, including 16.8% sales growth to end 2025 with $57 million, and 7.5% unit-count growth to finish with 72 locations.
As the category becomes even more crowded, Carr believes Guthrie’s is in a good spot.
“Some of it comes down to being a family-minded business and the values around the food itself. We’re still doing some things the old-fashioned way,” he said.
That means intentionally using smaller tenders, which he added are “more tender and taste better,” and that restaurant employees bread by hand.
“It’s not just a timer or an AI function. (Breading) is about watching it and then doing it. Some of these traditions are important and are still at the center of what we do,” Carr said.
Guthrie’s is also intentional about keeping its menu simple to better compete in an intense category. That menu includes fingers, fries, Texas Toast, slaw, sandwich combos and Guthrie’s Signature Sauce, which Carr said has “been copied by everybody around the world.”
In 1978, founder Hal Guthrie challenged his children to create a compatible sauce for dipping their children. His 9-year-old Hud won the family content.
“It’s under wraps, like the Coca-Cola recipe,” Carr said.
Though he claims several concepts have duplicated Guthrie’s sauce recipe, he doesn’t consider it to be a bad thing.
“It’s positive what is happening in this category. There is huge growth and even with that competitiveness, the category is still growing,” he said. “There is space in the category for us. Consumers love fried chicken fingers, so there’s a lot of room.”
Most of Guthrie’s footprint is in Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee. The company recently added Ohio and West Virginia to its portfolio, with 2026 openings targeted in North Carolina and South Carolina. Openings are a mix of company and franchised stores, and Carr said some restaurants also continue to be developed by Guthrie family members.
“In new markets, we’re focused on marketing and creating some level of awareness for the brand with promotions like free Guthrie’s for a year for the first 100 guests,” he said. “Having a great location is still the best marketing tool, as is having great operators with hometown people.”
Technomic’s 2026 forecast for Guthrie’s includes a nearly 12% sales jump and 6% unit count increase. As the chain continues to grow, Carr reiterates that his biggest priority is maintaining the legacy Hal Guthrie created when he opened the first drive-in restaurant in Haleyville, Ala., in 1965. That means focusing on the simplicity of the menu, hands-on training, creating disciplined systems and processes and, most importantly, “putting extra care into the core product.”
“That matters,” he said. “I did not join this brand to change the menu, I came to take a great concept forward. With our continued growth, that gives the business more opportunities to get better. We aren’t changing the way we do food, but other things — technology and marketing and things like that — are just now going into place.”
In other words, the flywheel is in motion and perhaps more than it’s ever been, which is giving Carr plenty of optimism about cracking the Top 500 sooner than later.
“We’re growing in markets where our direct bigger competitors are, showing that there is an appetite for our brand,” he said. “We like to think we’re a 60-year-old underdog. I’m OK being the 60-year-old upstart. There’s only room up for us.”
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