The local franchise owners of a restaurant chain famous for its chicken fingers hope to soon grab chicken lovers in Brainerd.
Guthrie’s will open their fourth area restaurant in early August when the the local franchise owners add a Guthrie’s ToGo unit at 5203 Brainerd Road.
Unlike other Guthrie’s units on Signal Mountain and in Trenton and Ringgold, the new 1,300-square-foot unit will have no inside seating and will employ only about half as many as the usual 20 to 25-employee staff at the existing restaurants.
But with most of the sales of chicken strip boxes and buckets already coming from drive-through business, the owners expect the new Brainerd location to fare well, even in the crowded menu of of fast-food options along Brainerd Road.
“We’re sort of inundated with restaurants here, but Guthrie’s chicken fingers are really unlike anything else out there,” said Will Garrett, a co-owner of the local franchise who grew up loving the taste of Guthrie’s chicken fingers and wings while he was a student at the University of Alabama. “We use the best filet of the chicken and everything we cook is made from fresh and cooked only a few minutes before we serve it.”