Zaxbys, the Atlanta, Ga.-based chicken tender restaurant, is looking to the Des Moines metro for future expansion, the company’s director of franchise development said.

Zaxbys, founded in 1990 in Statesboro, Ga., will open its 1,000th restaurant this year and has stores in 20 states, from Georgia to Missouri and Illinois, Scott Temme said.

The company has targeted Iowa and the Des Moines metro as it continues its expansion across the country, Temme said.

“We believe Des Moines is hot for growth and expansion,” he said. “Des Moines is a high-potential market. It has a strong economy. It’s a business friendly climate. We see steady population growth and a dynamic mix of young professionals, families and college students.”

Zaxbys is currently looking for franchise operators for Des Moines stores and will begin identifying sites for commercial development, Temme said.

He said Zaxbys uses a “blended approach of strong data driven analytics” from data collected from its existing restaurants to project areas prime for expansion.

“It relies on demographic information, population growth, building permits, traffic counts … and we have depth of experience on our real estate team, folks that have been around the industry for a very long time,” Temme said. “We actually visit a market and put people on the ground to validate what the data is telling us.”

Once a franchise agreement is signed, Zaxbys will work with its franchise partner and a commercial broker to identify sites, he said.

According to Temme, Zaxbys could open as many as eight to 10 restaurants in the metro, either with a single franchise partner or two franchise partners.

“We’re in the process of identifying and finding great franchise partners to open restaurants,” he said. “We’re very intentional with who we partner with.”

Zaxbys is transitioning from its legacy model of about 3,000 square feet with 60 seats to smaller 1,600-square-foot stores that seat about 30 people with a double drive-thru.

That setup better meets the changes seen in the market, Temme said.

“It’s a drive-thru business. It’s an order ahead through the app business and it’s a third-party delivery business,” he said. “The digital has made an impact so we have shrunk our footprint and we’re shrinking the development cost to build a restaurant.”

Each restaurant represents an investment of between $1.4 million and $3.8 million before land is purchased, Temme said.

Zaxbys was founded at a time when the chicken tender market was relatively untapped, but the market has boomed and Zaxbys has been expanding to keep pace with the growing demand nationwide.

Temme said what sets Zaxbys apart from other chicken tender restaurants are its 12 made-from-scratch signature sauces. The restaurant also offers wings, sandwiches and salads.

Each restaurant will employ 50-plus people, Temme said.

Temme said once a franchise partner is identified, it takes three to five months to finalize the franchise agreement. From there, it generally takes 12 to 15 months until the first store is open, he said.

“But we’re very intentional on Iowa,” Temme said. “We’re very bullish on Des Moines.”