Golden Chick Launches Gimme That Golden Brand Campaign

Golden Chick Is Ready to Write Its Next Chapter After Nearly Six Decades

Golden Chick, the Texas-born chicken tenders chain that has been quietly building its business since 1967, is stepping into the spotlight with its most ambitious brand campaign to date. Launched under the banner "Gimme That Golden," the new initiative marks what the company's leadership describes as a genuine inflection point- a moment to introduce a beloved legacy brand to a new generation of consumers while capitalising on the surging national appetite for chicken tenders. The campaign arrives as Golden Chick closes out a record year of restaurant openings, finishing 2025 with just under 250 locations and nearly 9% year-over-year unit growth according to Technomic data. For a brand that has spent decades building deliberately and quietly, the decision to turn up the volume feels both earned and overdue.

2. A Brand Founded on Family- and That Has Never Changed

Golden Chick's story begins in San Marcos, Texas, where husband-and-wife team Howard and Jacque Walker opened the original restaurant in 1967 under the name Golden Fried Chicken. The company began franchising in 1972 before changing hands in 1982 and filing for bankruptcy shortly after. Mark Parmerlee and his partners acquired the business in 1989 when it operated 63 units, and rebranded it as Golden Chick in 1993- a name that has stuck, along with a culture of ownership and loyalty that Parmerlee has cultivated across more than three decades at the helm. In 2015, he brought Howard Terry on board as Chief Marketing Officer following a stint at Raising Cane's, and the two have been building the brand together ever since. "I've held babies that are now second-generation franchisees," Terry said. "That's one thing consistent ownership has given us. People trust us."

Gimme That Golden - A Campaign Built to Make an Impression

The "Gimme That Golden" campaign was created in partnership with longtime agency partner The LOOMIS Agency, and the ad spot leaves very little to chance. It features younger consumers enjoying tenders and sauces across a variety of vibrant settings, and is packed with visual details designed to lodge in the memory- a yellow Jeep with a "Gimme" personalised plate, gold pompoms and confetti at a sports event, a "GC" gold tooth gem, and a modernised jingle drawing on elements from previous Golden Chick campaigns, composed by Grammy Award-winning sound engineer Tre Nagella. The creative approach is deliberate - in a category dominated by brands with vastly larger media budgets, Golden Chick is betting on memorability over volume. "For every 10 Popeyes you see, you might only see one Golden Chick, but you remember it," Terry said. "We're counting on our new messaging resonating more than the media weight."

Years of Groundwork Made This Moment Possible

The Gimme That Golden campaign did not emerge from a standing start. It is the public-facing culmination of years of internal investment and modernisation work that has reshaped Golden Chick from the inside out. The chain has upgraded menu items, remodelled restaurants, tightened operations and training, refreshed its technology stack, launched a new loyalty programme, and significantly expanded its digital marketing budget. Each of those investments addressed a different dimension of the brand's competitive readiness, and the new campaign is designed to amplify the results of all that work simultaneously. Parmerlee was candid about the urgency behind the push. "We're in a very crowded category and I'd rather be proactive than play catch-up," he said. "We can't stay the same. Our franchisees don't want us to stay the same."

At the centre of Golden Chick's identity is a menu that goes considerably broader than the tenders-only format many of its competitors have adopted. Tenders are the workhorse of the menu, alongside the brand's celebrated fresh-baked yeast rolls- but the lineup also includes roasted chicken, fried legs and thighs, wings, Southern fried catfish, sandwiches, salads, and a wide range of sides spanning fried okra, dirty rice, coleslaw, and mashed potatoes. Limited-time additions like a new Apple Empanada and a Dr. Pepper Cream Soda specialty beverage extend the menu's seasonal appeal. "You can't be everything to everybody, but we can be broad enough to appeal to a wider range of customers," Terry said. That breadth, combined with the brand's signature hand-breaded, marinated chicken, is what Terry identifies as the food-first foundation on which all of Golden Chick's growth is built. "It's a crowded category, but the reason we've been successful all these years is the food. It always comes back to the food."

The Goal Is Simple- Beat Last Year, Every Year

Golden Chick's ambitions for the years ahead are framed in characteristically grounded terms. The team expects a similar pace of unit growth in 2026 to match the record set in 2025, with the Gimme That Golden campaign providing the brand awareness fuel to support that expansion. But Terry's vision extends further- he sees Golden Chick as a brand that people will look back on in five years and marvel at, not because it appeared suddenly but because its success was the product of decades of deliberate, purposeful work. "This is what I like to call a 20-year overnight success," he said. "A really deliberate, thoughtful, purposeful, intentional action that creates a kind of success that people look at and go, 'Wow, that came out of nowhere.' But no it didn't. It's the product of a lot of hard work over a lot of years." For a brand approaching its 60th anniversary with more momentum than it has ever had, that patience is finally starting to pay off.

Golden Chick Is Ready to Write Its Next Chapter After Nearly Six Decades

Gimme That Golden - A Campaign Built to Make an Impression

Years of Groundwork Made This Moment Possible

A Menu That Does More Than Most Chicken Chains Attempt

The Goal Is Simple- Beat Last Year, Every Year

Golden Chick Launches Gimme That Golden Brand Campaign

Golden Chick Is Ready to Write Its Next Chapter After Nearly Six Decades

2. A Brand Founded on Family- and That Has Never Changed

Gimme That Golden - A Campaign Built to Make an Impression

Years of Groundwork Made This Moment Possible

A Menu That Does More Than Most Chicken Chains Attempt

The Goal Is Simple- Beat Last Year, Every Year

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Golden Chick Launches Gimme That Golden Brand Campaign

Golden Chick Is Ready to Write Its Next Chapter After Nearly Six Decades

2. A Brand Founded on Family- and That Has Never Changed

Gimme That Golden - A Campaign Built to Make an Impression

Years of Groundwork Made This Moment Possible

A Menu That Does More Than Most Chicken Chains Attempt

The Goal Is Simple- Beat Last Year, Every Year