Guthrie's facts for kids
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Trade name
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Guthrie's |
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| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Genre | Fast casual |
| Founded | 1965 Haleyville, Alabama, U.S. |
| Founder | Hal Guthrie |
| Headquarters |
,
U.S.
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Number of locations
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69 (2025) |
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Area served
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Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia (12 states in the U.S.) |
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Key people
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Joe Kelly Guthrie (CEO) |
| Products | Chicken fingers, French fries, Coleslaw, Texas toast, Signature sauce, Sweet tea |
| Owner | Guthrie family |
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Number of employees
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800 (2021) |
Guthrie's is a popular restaurant chain in the United States. It's famous for being the very first place to focus its menu on delicious chicken fingers! Guthrie's started in 1965 in Haleyville, Alabama, thanks to a person named Hal Guthrie.
By 1978, the restaurant's menu changed. It began to mostly serve chicken fingers, along with their special sauce, French fries, coleslaw, and Texas toast. This made Guthrie's the first restaurant to build its main menu around chicken fingers. Today, Guthrie's has grown a lot. It has 69 restaurants across the United States.
The Story of Guthrie's
The very first Guthrie's restaurant opened its doors in 1965. It was in Haleyville, Alabama, and was started by Hal Guthrie. At first, the restaurant served many different kinds of Southern food.
Focusing on Chicken Fingers
In 1978, something big changed. Guthrie's decided to focus almost entirely on chicken fingers. This was a new idea for restaurants at the time. It made Guthrie's the first place to have a menu mostly about chicken fingers.
By 1982, a second Guthrie's opened in Auburn, Alabama. Then, in 1984, a third location started serving customers in Athens, Georgia. By 1997, there were eight Guthrie's restaurants. All of them were owned by the Guthrie family.
Growing Across the States
Many of the early Guthrie's restaurants were built near big universities. These included Auburn University, University of Georgia, University of Alabama, University of Florida, and Florida State University. This helped them become popular with students.
Guthrie's started opening restaurants outside of college towns in 1997. The first one was in Gardendale, Alabama. By 2005, the Guthrie family still owned all 26 restaurants in the chain.
In April 2005, Guthrie's announced they wanted to grow even more. They planned to open restaurants in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi. They also started letting other people open Guthrie's restaurants as a franchise.
By 2015, Guthrie's had expanded into Kentucky. Later, in 2022, they opened their first restaurant in Mississippi. This location was in Oxford, Mississippi, close to the University of Mississippi. Two years later, in 2024, Las Vegas, Nevada, became home to the first Guthrie's in a western state.
See also
- List of fast-food chicken restaurants
