If you haven't heard of Starbird Chicken, not to worry — you haven't somehow missed
out on the latest insider foodie information. But this up-and-coming chicken joint should
be on your radar. It's quickly becoming a powerhouse in the fast-food industry and destination
for chicken lovers.
Starbird Chicken wasn't founded in the more traditional sense by some guy with a homemade
chicken recipe all of his friends couldn't get enough of. No, according to an article
in Forbes, Starbird was founded by the head of a food and beverage consulting company
and investment incubator, Aaron Noveshen, who was looking for a new business to pour
his own ideas into.
After looking at the market, he and his firm, The Culinary Edge, decided that, quote, "chicken
was the place to be" — that there was room for innovation and differentiation that would
be harder to come by with other fast food or restaurant concepts.
In 2016, the first restaurant opened in Sunnyvale, California, with Noveshen as CEO and The Culinary
Edge team members helping provide funds, receiving equity and ownership in return.
In the years since the doors first opened, six locations have gotten up and running with
plans to continue expanding, primarily along the West Coast. Noveshen said he expects to
double its current number of restaurants by 2022. And as the chain does continue growing,
it's hoping to turn the restaurant into a franchise too.
That said, Noveshen insists the company doesn't have big plans for thousands of restaurants
— it'll grow where and how it makes sense to grow.
"Starbird is all about changing the way that fast food is eaten today.”
When it comes to fast-food fried chicken sandwiches, Chick-fil-A has practically written the manual.
And the chain has done a good job of differentiating themselves from other fried chicken restaurants
like KFC and Popeyes — by focusing on fresher, house-made ingredients and offering some healthier
options.
Well, Starbird wants to school Chick-fil-A on how to do chef-inspired recipes and house-made,
"gourmet" fast food fried chicken even better. And the company's not shy about saying as
much.
In 2016 Starbird CEO Aaron Noveshen told QSR:
"We think Chick-fil-A does a great job, but our approach was conceived to improve upon
theirs. There isn't anyone doing chicken today with a super-premium product."
So what, exactly is "super-premium" chicken? If that's what Starbird is offering, it starts
out as free-range and antibiotic-free. But more than that, it's locally sourced, hand-cut,
and fried in small batches.
All the recipes are chef-created and inspired, which upgrades the well-known fried chicken
on a bun with pickles to the Starbird, which includes crispy chicken, super slaw, avocado,
and mayo on a house-made bun.
The 2020 worldwide COVID-19 pandemic hasn't exactly been kind to a lot of businesses.
This is especially true of businesses focused on a model designed to serve customers in-store.
As governments rolled out regulations for social distancing and reducing large gatherings
in closed spaces, many restaurants found themselves shutting down temporarily — and sometimes
permanently — in an effort to accommodate these changes.
But amidst a painful time for many companies, Starbird Chicken actually found itself thriving
even more than it was pre-pandemic, noting in a Forbes profile that it saw a 30 percent
sales spike in the second quarter of 2020.
This is largely because Starbird was already positioned to focus on off-premise sales through
mobile and online ordering using third-party delivery vendors like DoorDash, Uber Eats,
GrubHub, and Postmates.
"Thanks baby!"
Sure, Starbird needs its brick-and-mortar stores for boosting brand recognition, but
ultimately, as a way to keep overhead costs relatively low, the company has always seen
off-premises sales as a cornerstone of its business.
So, when governments started shutting down in-store purchases, Starbird was already up
and running with its alternative model for selling and delivering food. Talk about good
timing.
As soon as news of a world-wide coronavirus pandemic started to break in January and February
2020, Starbird Chicken started making adjustments to its business model to help keep employees
and customers safe. But according to a May 2020 article in QSR, the company also immediately
used the opportunity to focus on one of its guiding principles: community. Located in
the Bay Area, an area that was quick to institute strict stay-at-home orders, Starbird knew
it wanted to support healthcare workers and frontline professionals while also encouraging
customers to offer support too.
The company created a matching campaign to donate food to the nurses and doctors at local
hospitals who were working hard to keep the community safe. Essentially, customers were
given the option when ordering their food to donate a meal to healthcare employees.
Whenever a donation was made, Starbird would match it.
Thus, a single sandwich donation became two. The beauty of this type of support is that
it often is reciprocated. Starbird CEO Aaron Noveshen stated that they now receive catering
orders from medical offices and businesses because these same locations experienced or
witnessed the way Starbird was helping foster community support.
For most fast-food restaurants, salads are an afterthought. But salads are another way
Starbird Chicken is setting itself apart from other fast food restaurants. According to
an article in Forbes, 20 percent of Starbird sales are salads. And even though the chain
is positioned around fried chicken, its salads can be served with grilled chicken, making
them appealing to health-conscious buyers.
And in a 2019 article from QSR, Noveshen further explains the importance of the salad to the
menu, saying:
"If there's anything that we're really proud of, it's our salads. [...] A lot of that comes
from all the fresh California produce that we use, the fact that we really believe that
vegetables are a good thing."
Noveshen even admits that the Chicken Chop salad, featuring crispy chicken, tomatoes,
roasted corn, avocado mash, pepitas, crispy tortillas, cotija, cilantro, green onions,
and chipotle lime dressing, is an item he personally craves. To be fair, it does sound
delicious.
If the selling point for your restaurant is, quote, "super-premium" food, then you'd better
be putting a lot of effort into ensuring every menu item stands out from every other fast
food menu board.
And that's exactly what Starbird Chicken is trying to do. The company's CEO said the chain
is a, quote, "chef-driven company," explaining that the food is high-quality and locally
sourced with fresh vegetables and antibiotic-free meat. In fact, Starbird even makes its sauces
and breads in-house.
But if you're not convinced, still assuming a chicken sandwich is just a chicken sandwich,
consider the restaurant's Big Star Sandwich, described in QSR as:
"[A] riff on a bold and saucy classic crispy chicken sandwich."
Sure, it's got the same ol' crispy chicken, dill pickles and bun. But then it goes a little
further, adding sliced tomato, shredded lettuce, and "Star Sauce," a house-made sweet and smoky
white barbecue sauce, which has become the company's most popular dipping sauce. As good
as the name implies, this company takes making high-quality food very seriously.
Noveshen told Forbes the rice bran oil the company uses to deep-fry their chicken is,
quote, "more healthful" than other oils. He says that it lowers cholesterol, is less oily,
and doesn't stick to the food.
As an article on Healthline points out, this type of oil may, in fact, help support health
in different ways, including supporting healthy blood sugar levels, lowering "bad" cholesterol
and boosting "good" cholesterol, along with offering antioxidant effects.
That said, that's not that different then other vegetable oils, like olive oil, which
is likewise low in saturated fat and is associated with heart-healthy outcomes.
At the end of the day, it's important to remember that all fats have the same number of calories
per gram and really vary more in the level of processing they go through and the level
of saturated fat versus unsaturated fat they contain. In this sense, it matters less what
type of oil you're cooking in and more how much fried chicken — or other highly processed
fatty foods — you're consuming regularly.
Starbird Chicken continues to expand. And as it expands, the company is continuing to
hire. So if you live in the Bay Area or in other areas in the Western United States,
you'd be wise to keep an eye on the Starbird Chicken employment page.
"Would you like some Smiley sauce?"
"No, no, no. Actually, I'd like to fill out an application."
The thing is, Starbird Chicken isn't just hiring — it's hiring while keeping an eye
on how well it treats its employees. There was no better time to see this in action than
as when the pandemic started taking over the United States. According to a May 2020 QSR
profile, the first guiding principle that Starbird focused on as the world and life
seemed to come to a grinding halt was its people.
CEO Aaron Noveshen said:
"Let's take a risk on ourselves. Let's invest in our people, invest in their safety; let's
invest in their wellbeing."
As such, the company instituted safety precautions to limit dining room capacity and encourage
social distancing before such practices were widespread or government-mandated.
At the same time, it provided all of its employees with raises and extra free meals to share
with their families. It looks like the company made every effort to keep its employees safe
during this unprecedented crisis.
If you search online for "Starbird Wings," you'll find an entire website dedicated to
Starbird Chicken's wings. But you won't find a Starbird Wings brick-and-mortar location
anywhere in America. This is because it's a "virtual brand" — a virtual off-shoot
of the "real" restaurant, Starbird Chicken.
Noveshen has pointed to their wings as being a money-maker during the pandemic when, in
the blink of an eye, online ordering and food delivery became weeknight norms.
Starbird Chicken actually has two virtual brands: Starbird Wings and Starbird Salads.
Both brands are entirely digital. The idea is for people to order from these "restaurants"
by using third-party apps to order food, like DoorDash or Uber Eats. When a person searches
"wings" or "salad" in the app, restaurants with those keywords in their names will come
back as the top results.
So while there's not a physical Starbird Wings location to be found, you can get the food
within these third-party apps, which provide the company with greater brand recognition.
Of course, when the orders go through, they're fulfilled at the closest Starbird Chicken
location and arrive with Starbird branding.
Noveshen also notes that as the company expands, it may expand through virtual brands, focusing
on making food in, quote, "cloud kitchens" rather than in brick-and-mortar stores that
have in-house dining. This could allow the company to keep overhead costs down while
reaching more markets in less time.
When you're trying to sell food, you need imagery that makes people's mouths water,
and whoever's taking photos for Starbird Chicken's social media pages is darn good at food photography.
Seriously, just head over to the company's Instagram or Facebook pages to take a peek
at what they've got going on. If you're at all influenced by photography, about three
photos in, you'll be getting a hankering for Fully Loaded Nashville Fries and Fried Chicken
Tacos. And even if you're not the "salad type," you might change your tune after seeing a
few of the best options on the menu, like the Tokyo Katsu salad.
Granted, unless you live in the Bay Area, you probably won't be able to follow through
on ordering any of these meals for a while, but there's something about viewing delicious
food like this that could still inspire your next meal.
The Starbird Chicken logo is clean, simple, and frankly, adorable. Just look at that little
chick hatching from an egg. Too bad you're actually eating the chickens at the restaurant,
so the items on your plate aren't nearly as cute as the company's branding.
But hey, it's selling a concept, right? And that concept has a story that was shared by
Identity Designed.
Based on Starbird Chicken's goals, branding agency Strohl Design said it wanted to:
"Tap into the joy and fun of the golden age of American fast food."
But didn't want to come across as being "retro" or "inauthentic."
As the design firm went through the initial sketching process, it focused on the ideas
of simplicity, "freshness," and, quote, "hatching."
Ultimately, it wanted a design that would cut through the visual clutter often found
in fast food marketing and branding. The simple color pallet and logo aim to communicate,
quote, "bold freshness." And it works. Who wouldn't love this clean and engaging design?
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