Dave’s Hot Chicken adds Garner and Cary locations in Wake County

Dave’s Hot Chicken is widening its Wake County footprint again, with new locations planned in Garner and Cary that will bring the local count to five once both restaurants open. The Garner site at 220 Cabela Drive will sit beside Bass Pro Shops, LongHorn Steakhouse and Starbucks at the busy Cabela Drive and U.S. 70 corridor, while the Cary shop is slated for 4675 N.C. 55 in Alston Town Center.

In Garner, the chain is planning a stand-alone 2,500-square-foot building, a sign that the brand sees enough traffic and customer demand to justify its own pad site rather than a space tucked into a larger building. That matters along eastern Garner’s retail strip, where national chains often cluster around high-volume intersections and where every new restaurant can pull in drivers from U.S. 70 as well as shoppers already headed to the surrounding big-box stores.

Cary is getting a different kind of bet. The new Dave’s Hot Chicken will go into Alston Town Center, Cary’s open-air shopping, dining and entertainment development, putting another fast-casual option into one of Wake County’s fastest-growing suburban retail nodes. One report says the opening is projected for the third quarter of 2026, while other information points to a launch by the end of the year.

The expansion continues a run that began when Dave’s opened its first Triangle restaurant in Wake Forest in 2023. The chain later added locations in Holly Springs and Raleigh, and the local franchise is owned by Russell and Loreen Hansen. Larry Holcomb, the franchise’s vice president of operations, has said the original development plan called for six restaurants and that more Triangle locations could still be added.

That next-wave thinking has implications beyond the brand itself. More Dave’s stores mean more hiring in suburban Wake County, more traffic concentrated around major corridors, and more pressure on nearby independent restaurants competing for the same lunch and dinner crowd. Holcomb has said the company is eyeing Durham and Chapel Hill as well, which suggests the Triangle market is still absorbing national growth rather than reaching saturation. Amanda Muentnich has also been identified as a managing partner in the Triangle and Eastern North Carolina franchise group, underscoring how much the local operation has scaled beyond its first Wake Forest shop.

Dave’s Hot Chicken describes itself as a Nashville-style hot chicken fast-casual chain serving tenders and sliders, and its national rise has been steep. A local profile cited QSR figures showing the brand growing from seven stores in 2021 to 180 nationwide in 2023, a trajectory now playing out in Wake County’s retail corridors.