ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – After opening its first location in New Mexico in April, Chicken Salad Chick is getting ready to open its second, and possibly third, restaurant in the state.
Franchisees Jennifer Sanchez and Keith Murray opened their location at 10621 Unser Blvd. NW near McMahon Boulevard NW in Albuquerque. Now they have their sights set on bringing Chicken Salad Chick to Winrock Town Center. “They’re going to build us a building, and it’s literally going to be the pad kind of adjacent to Red Robin in front of Ulta. We hope to have it open and operating within a year. So I might be a little aggressive on that, but we’re hoping for a year, this time next year,” said Sanchez.
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Chicken Salad Chick’s menu features 12 flavors of chicken salad, soups, salads, pimento cheese, and more. The 3,200-square-foot location on Unser offers both inside and outside dining, and a drive-through. Sanchez and Murray said the 2,800-square-foot Winrock location will be a little different. “So we’re not going to have a drive-thru there. However, we are going to have a 500-square-foot patio outside,” Sanchez said.
While the duo awaits the opening of their new location, they plan to get involved with the Winrock Park Market on Saturdays by selling chicken salad. They are also actively looking for a space to house another restaurant location.
“We’ve been aggressively looking at Far Northeast Heights, Los Lunas, 25 and Gibson area, Santa Fe, Durango, Colorado; Las Cruces, New Mexico,” Sanchez explained, adding that they would like to open a total of seven Chicken Salad Chick restaurants.
Sanchez and Murray attributed their success so far to their customers and employees. “It’s evolved here, especially here in Albuquerque, and people here have been terrific to us and everything. We have some great customers, our employees are great, we still have about 80 some odd percent of the initial employees are here still, they enjoy coming to work, which has been great,” said Murray.
