Operations

No pickle butts: How Love & Honey Fried Chicken built a scalable brand

Laura Lyons, co-founder & CEO, Love & Honey Franchise Company, explains how the brand's systems, obsession over details and training are helping the five-unit brand grow via franchising. It's also about the pickles!

Photo: Love & Honey

June 19, 2026 | Laura Lyons, Co-Founder & CEO, Love & Honey Franchise Company

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When my husband Todd and I founded Love & Honey Fried Chicken in 2017, we saw an opportunity to create something that didn't exis t —a premium fast-casual fried chicken brand built on quality, hospitality and attention to detail. Consumers had plenty of fried chicken options at the time, but most fell into one of two categories: traditional fast-food chains or full-service restaurants. What was missing was a premium fast-casual concept that could deliver exceptional food and genuine hospitality with the convenience today's guests expect.

Todd and I have spent our careers working across nearly every facet of the industry from restaurant operations and catering to product development, hospitality and food marketing. That experience gave us a unique perspective on creating exceptional food while building a concept designed for long-term growth. Our vision was to serve premium ingredients, hand-dredged chicken, scratch-made sauces and genuine hospitality through a model that was both operationally disciplined and scalable. From the start, our goal wasn't simply to build a great restaurant, but to build a great restaurant brand.

Building for consistency

Many restaurants are built around the talent of a chef, and while that can create incredible food, it often makes growth difficult. If quality relies on having highly trained culinary professionals in every location, scaling becomes challenging. We wanted to prove that exceptional food and operational simplicity could coexist.

As we've expanded into franchising, we have spent countless hours refining recipes, documenting procedures, simplifying execution, and building training systems. Every change has been evaluated through a simple lens: Can we maintain or improve quality while making execution more consistent and repeatable? One of the accomplishments I'm most proud of is that we've preserved the quality standards that built our reputation while creating systems that allow franchise teams to execute successfully without formal culinary training.

That level of consistency doesn't happen by accident. It results from operational discipline, thorough training, clear documentation, and continuous refinement. Every recipe, procedure, and guest interaction is an opportunity to improve, and over time, those small improvements add up to something meaningful.

The details guests can feel

At Love & Honey, attention to detail has become our competitive advantage. We're fanatical about it. Our chicken is brined in-house, hand-dredged and fried in small batches. Our sauces are made from scratch. Our recipes are documented, measured and consistently executed. Every step contributes to the guest experience. It sounds silly, but one of the standards we train on is "no pickle butts." That small detail perfectly illustrates our approach to quality and the guest experience. The end piece of a pickle has a different texture and bite than the rest of the pickle. It may seem insignificant, but it can negatively impact the experience of eating a sandwich.

The same goes for the number of pickles on our sandwiches. We put three pickles on every sandwich because we want guests to get pickle in every bite. It's a small detail, but it's intentional. Most guests will never consciously notice these decisions, but they can feel the result. That's what attention to detail really means.

Scaling without compromise

Brands aren't built by one big thing — they're built through hundreds of small decisions made consistently over time. Those details communicate care, quality, and craftsmanship, and they're often what separate a good restaurant from a great brand. As we've expanded, we've invested heavily in building systems before pursuing aggressive growth. Our corporate restaurant serves as both an operating restaurant and a training facility where future franchise owners, managers, and team members learn the Love & Honey way.

Growth doesn't expose your strengths—it exposes your weaknesses. If recipes aren't clear, training isn't thorough, or quality depends on one talented individual, growth will reveal it. Sustainable growth requires systems that consistently deliver the same quality, hospitality, and guest experience, regardless of location or who's working the shift.

Love for everyone we serve

As we continue to grow, our focus remains unchanged: protect the product, obsess over details, build systems that support consistency, deliver genuine hospitality, and never lose sight of what made the brand successful in the first place. Recently, we've put a finer point on our philosophy through our core focus statement: Love for Everyone We Serve. That focus extends beyond our guests to include our team members, franchisees, vendors, delivery drivers, community partners, and everyone who interacts with our brand.

For us, "Love for Everyone We Serve" isn't just a culture statement. It's a business strategy. It influences how we train, communicate, solve problems and make decisions. We believe that when people feel valued, respected, and supported, they create better experiences for others — and that impact can be felt throughout the entire organization.

Our systems help us deliver consistency. Our training helps us protect quality. But the care behind those systems is what ultimately creates loyalty, builds trust, and turns first-time guests into lifelong advocates for the brand.

For us, sustainable growth has never been about opening more restaurants. It's about maintaining the quality, hospitality and attention to detail that built the brand in the first place.