Church’s Texas Chicken names Kevin Nemeth chief commercial officer

Church’s Texas Chicken’s latest commercial move is less about a title than about the pressure it can send down to the kitchen and the counter. The chain named Kevin Nemeth chief commercial officer on May 26, putting brand, marketing, digital, loyalty, customer relationship management, guest engagement, menu strategy, pricing, product innovation and revenue growth under one leader as it tries to make its commercial plans show up in restaurant execution.

Church’s said Nemeth’s job will connect brand, digital, loyalty, menu strategy and restaurant execution into a more integrated approach, with a focus on driving traffic, increasing guest visit frequency and supporting franchisees at the store level. Roland Gonzalez said the hire came as Church’s enters “an important phase of growth.” Nemeth most recently served as chief digital and marketing officer for Authentic Restaurant Brands and previously held leadership roles at Popeyes, TD Bank, L’Oréal and HSN.

The Popeyes stop is the one restaurant workers will recognize fastest. Church’s said Nemeth helped grow digital sales there from roughly 4 percent to nearly 20 percent of total sales, and helped launch Popeyes Rewards, which reached more than 5 million users in its first six months. For line workers and shift managers, that kind of background usually signals more pressure around app orders, loyalty redemptions, pickup timing and the constant need to explain discounts, offers and rewards to guests who arrive expecting a deal.

The hire lands in the middle of a bigger growth push. In a February 2024 update, Church’s said it had more than 1,500 locations in 23 countries and was on track to grow system sales from $1.4 billion to more than $2 billion by 2028. The company said average unit volume had surpassed $1 million across the U.S. system, that it opened 70 new locations in 15 markets in 2023, and that more than 100 restaurants had already been reimaged under its Blaze concept since 2020, with 400 more remodels planned over the next three years in the U.S.

That scale matters because commercial strategy does not stay in headquarters. Restaurant Business and Technomic estimated Church’s 2024 U.S. sales at $847 million across 761 units, which gives a sense of how much rides on pricing, product innovation and digital traffic. If Nemeth’s portfolio helps simplify service and tighten the guest flow, crews could feel the difference in fewer errors and smoother tickets. If it adds another layer of promotions, menu complexity and app-driven demand without enough training or staffing, the strain will land where it usually does: on the people taking the orders and making the food.