7 Things Georgians Know About Zaxby's That the Rest of the Country Is Still Finding Out

Georgians knew Zaxby’s long before it started popping up in other states.

For a lot of locals, it’s tied to college towns, game days and hometown pride.

Here’s the backstory that the rest of the country is just catching up on.

1. A Bulldog and an Eagle

Zaxby’s started with two founders from two different campuses.

Zach McLeroy graduated from the University of Georgia, home of the Bulldogs, with an agricultural economics degree and moved to Statesboro.

Tony Townley graduated from Georgia Southern, home of the Eagles, with a business degree.

Their first investment was $16,000, and what they didn’t have in cash they borrowed on credit cards and a small business loan, the Statesboro Herald reported.

So when you pull into a Zaxby’s drive-thru, you’re ordering from a business that started with cash, credit cards and a small business loan.

2. Statesboro Original

Zaxby’s opened its first restaurant on March 27, 1990, in Statesboro, according to the Statesboro Herald.

In a 2015 anniversary release, the company said it started as a local restaurant serving the college community of Statesboro.

That was the whole company.

If you ate there then, you ate at the only Zaxby’s.

When a newer Statesboro Zaxby’s opened, the original restaurant was only 83 steps away.

3. Chicken Finger Gap

Zaxby’s co-founder Zach McLeroy told The Red & Black in 2010 that the idea for Zaxby’s came out of necessity.

In the early 1990s, almost no restaurant built its menu around chicken fingers as an entree, which left a gap.

Zaxby’s filled that gap.

Chicken fingers are a standard dinner order now, so you might not have pictured a menu without them.

Zaxby’s calls them Chicken Fingerz.

If you order a plate today, you’re getting what those early-1990s menus were missing.

4. Tifton 500th

Zaxby’s opened its 500th restaurant in Tifton, Georgia, in May 2010, according to QSR Magazine.

The Tifton store was the 188th in Georgia.

At that point, you could find the Athens-based chain in 12 states.

That means Georgia had more than a third of the whole chain.

That was home turf.

5. Home-State Count

Zaxby’s had more restaurants in Georgia than in any other state.

ScrapeHero’s March 2025 count found 256 Zaxby’s restaurants, out of 980 nationwide.

Florida and North Carolina were next, with 120 each.

Georgia led.

That put roughly one in four of those 980 restaurants in Georgia.

Why Zaxby’s Counts Don’t Match

Zaxby’s restaurant counts depend on who counted and when.

In an April 2022 release, the company said it had more than 900 locations in 17 states.

Its February 2026 release says the chain operated more than 1,000 restaurants across 22 states as of January.

If you’ve seen two different totals, the date of the count is usually why.

6. Athens Roots

Zaxby’s ran its headquarters out of Athens, home of the University of Georgia, for years.

The Red & Black called Athens the hometown of co-founder McLeroy in 2010.

In July 2023, CFO Dive, citing an Oconee Enterprise report, said Zaxby’s planned to move its headquarters from Athens to metro Atlanta by the beginning of 2024.

The company’s July 2026 news release lists its headquarters as Atlanta.

Many people still think of Athens as Zaxby’s home.

If you’ve been telling people Zaxby’s is an Athens company, you’re out of date.

7. UGA Gamedays

Zaxby’s announced in 2013 that it had become the official chicken of college sports through a two-year deal.

The deal covered football and basketball at 25 Division I colleges, including the University of Georgia (UGA) and Georgia Tech.

The deal put videoboard features called the Zaxby’s Sack Cam and the Zaxby’s Dunk Cam into those games.

Zaxby’s kept at it.

In April 2022, it named UGA tight end Brock Bowers a brand ambassador.

Psst! How much do you know about where Southern restaurant chains got their start? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.

Quiz

Southern Chain Origins

Answer these questions on where Southern restaurant chains got their start. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?

Question 1 of 9

Krispy Kreme’s secret doughnut recipe reached founder Vernon Rudolph through his uncle, who bought it from a chef in which city?

From Zax to Zappetizers

Zaxby's grew out of a chicken restaurant called Zax, according to The Red & Black.

McLeroy traveled and opened new restaurants for the first five years, according to the company's 2015 anniversary release.

Townley and McLeroy sold their first franchise in 1994.

The chain stood at more than 670 corporate-owned and franchise locations, reaching as far west as Utah.

The menu also included Zalads and Zappetizers, so if you've wondered whether the Z spelling stops at Chicken Fingerz, it doesn't.

There were nine sauces, ranging from Wimpy and Tongue Torch to Nuclear and Insane.

The original Statesboro restaurant was being rebuilt with a farmhouse design and was scheduled to reopen on March 30, 2015.

Beyond the South

Zaxby's has moved well past the South.

The company's February 2026 release named Las Vegas and Phoenix among its new metro markets, along with expansion into Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Many people in those places are meeting Zaxby's Chicken Fingerz for the first time.

If you know the menu, you may be the one who tells them.

Zaxby's opened its first New York restaurant at 3260 Boston Road in the Bronx on June 29, according to a July 13 company release.

A second New York restaurant would follow at 1267 First Avenue on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

East Side Feed reported that it opened on September 30.

Nationwide, Zaxby's targets more than 60 new restaurant openings in 2026, with a long-term goal of 100 new stores a year.