A new name is entering Florida’s crowded chicken scene. The Minnie Bird Florida expansion begins with a 20-unit franchise development agreement to open restaurants across Tampa and Orlando, marking the Illinois-based brand’s first move into the state and the largest franchise commitment in its history.
The deal lands close to home for Central Florida operators, and it arrives with a franchisee whose name will be familiar to anyone tracking the region’s restaurant scene. Minnie Bird’s development partner is DiPasqua Brands, one of the oldest and largest franchise groups in the Subway system, with roots in Florida going back to the late 1970s and a portfolio of more than 100 restaurants across the state. Under the agreement, the DiPasqua organization will build 20 Minnie Bird locations across the two metros, with the first restaurants slated to open in 2027.
What makes this more than a routine expansion note is the profile of the buyer. DiPasqua Brands is a legacy multi-brand operator whose holdings extend beyond Subway into urgent care and day spa concepts, and the group is known for being selective about what it adds. For a brand with just a handful of company-owned restaurants, landing that kind of partner is a meaningful validation.
Company leader Pete DiPasqua said he had been studying the chicken segment for some time before committing, and pointed to Minnie Bird’s technology and streamlined kitchen operation as the deciding factors. His most quotable assessment: The concept, he said, already “feels like a 1,000-unit chain” despite operating only a few restaurants, a nod to the systems and back-of-house discipline the brand has built early.
Emerging brands live and die by unit economics, and Minnie Bird has a headline figure to point to. Its flagship in Schaumburg, Illinois generated more than $2.3 million in gross sales in 2025, and it did so from a roughly 2,100-square-foot inline space without a drive-thru or pickup window. That kind of average unit volume from a small, walk-up footprint is exactly the story a growing franchisor wants to tell prospective operators, and it clearly resonated here.
The brand also carries an eye-catching pedigree. Minnie Bird was launched by restaurant veterans including a co-founder of Naf Naf Grill and a grandson of Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas. On the menu, the concept leans into differentiation with premium fried chicken, “dirty sodas” and free soft-serve with every meal, plus a lineup of snackable chicken sliders branded as Minnie’s Minis.
For the Tampa Bay and Orlando corridors, the agreement means a fresh fast-casual option is on the way, backed by an operator that already understands the local real estate, labor and permitting landscape. For the wider franchise-development community, it’s a useful case study in how a regional favorite scales: Pairing strong early sales data with an experienced, well-capitalized franchisee rather than chasing rapid, thinly supported growth.
It’s also part of a broader push. The Florida deal is Minnie Bird’s second signed franchise agreement; the first, with a multi-unit Crumbl Cookies operator, will introduce the brand’s first drive-thru location in Illinois later this year. With Florida now on the map and Tampa among its first targets, Minnie Bird is betting the Sunshine State will help turn a promising regional concept into a national one.