It was 8 p.m. when the notification came through. A customer had used the digital feedback form printed on the bottom of a Golden Chick receipt to report a missing side of macaroni and cheese. Raj Korpal saw the complaint, picked up his phone, and dialed the number. He verified the customer’s address, bagged the missing side, and drove it directly to the customer’s home. When the man opened his front door, he was surprised to find the franchise owner standing on his porch, holding his order.
That level of personal service is standard practice for Raj and his brother, Karan Korpal. The siblings currently operate four Golden Chick restaurants across Southeast Texas and recently signed a 13-unit development agreement to aggressively expand the regional chicken chain into the Houston and Huntsville markets. It is a massive undertaking for the young operators, but scaling restaurant concepts runs in the family. They grew up helping their parents build a portfolio of Subway franchises, which now stands at 22 stores.
While they still help with the family’s sandwich business, the brothers have also been busy buying, flipping, and selling apartment complexes over the last three years. A few highly successful years in real estate gave them the capital and clarity to pursue franchising on their own. Karan first ate at Golden Chick while attending the University of Texas in Austin. He realized the chain didn’t have a store in his home area of Southeast Texas and immediately began exploring development opportunities…