Restaurant magnet: Chicken Salad Chick, Tijuana Flats to open this summer as latest chains to expand to Port Orange
Cameron Cauthen of Paul’s Electric digs a trench in front of the Dunlawton Commons retail complex nearing completion along Dunlawton Avenue in Port Orange, just east of Interstate 95. The complex will include Chicken Salad Chick and Tijuana Flats restaurants that are set to open this summer. NEWS-JOURNAL/BOB KOSLOW
Chicken Salad Chick, Tijuana Flats to open this summer as latest chains to expand to Port Orange.
Originally published by the Daytona Beach News Journal on March 8, 2016, by Bob Koslow.
PORT ORANGE —Two more fast-casual restaurant chains — Chicken Salad Chick and Tijuana Flats — are expanding to Port Orange, adding to the city’s growing menu of dining options.
Both have signed leases to open this summer in the new Dunlawton Commons complex nearing completion at 1760 Dunlawton Ave., just east of BJ’s Wholesale Club.
The eateries will be in the same retail development that includes a new Wawa convenience store/gas station, a Goodwill Industries store and Culver’s and Pollo Tropical restaurants.
The 10,000-square-foot Dunlawton Commons building will include a Sleep Number store and a Wells Fargo automatic teller machine, said leasing agent Ted Lightman, vice president of Charles Wayne Properties. The Sleep Number store will be the first Volusia-Flagler location for the Minneapolis, Minnesota-based mattress store chain.
Dunlawton Commons is being developed by Paul Holub Jr., owner/president of Holub Construction in Ormond Beach, and Charles Lichtigman, CEO of Daytona Beach-based Charles Wayne Properties.
Dunlawton Commons is part of an 11.5-acre retail center Holub and Lichtigman have been developing at the southwest corner of Dunlawton Avenue and Yorktowne Boulevard, just east of Interstate 95, next to the separately owned BJ’s-anchored Altamira Shopping Village.
Chicken Salad Chick offers 15 varieties of chicken salads, with names such as “Classic Carol,” “Dixie Chick,” “Jalapeno Holly,” “Barbie-Q” and “Fruity Fran.” The restaurants also serve sandwiches, soup, salads and desserts.
The Auburn, Alabama-based chain opened its first Volusia-Flagler location in October when local franchisees Gary “Buck” Harris and his wife Brooklyn opened a 2,900-square-foot Chicken Salad Chick eatery in a retail complex Holub developed at 75 N. Nova Road in Ormond Beach.
The couple’s planned 5,100-square-foot Chicken Salad Chick restaurant at Dunlawton Commons will include outdoor seating.
Harris anticipates hiring 40 employees for the restaurant, with a grand opening set for July that will include an appearance by the chain’s founder, Stacey Brown.
Brown, whose nickname became the chain’s name, was a single-parent when she began her business in 2007 by selling her homemade chicken salads to friends and neighbors in Auburn.
Chicken Salad Chick quickly grew into a chain of restaurants in states throughout the Southeast.
“Port Orange is a thriving community that I believe our brand and culture line up with,” Harris said.
Tijuana Flats is an Orlando area-based Tex-Mex restaurant chain with locations in six states including eateries in Daytona Beach and Orange City. The chain was started in 1995 by Brian Wheeler, who opened his first restaurant in Winter Park while a student at the University of Central Florida. In addition to offering burritos and other Tex-Mex dishes, the chain touts its own line of hot sauces, which it claims includes some of the hottest in the world.
The Port Orange Tijuana Flats will be company-owned, Lightman said.
Other restaurant chains recently expanding to Port Orange include Pollo Tropical, Culver’s, Panda Express, Pita Pit, Pie Five Pizza and Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers.
“Port Orange is on the national radar,” Lightman said.