Wingstop Plans to Open Hundreds of New Locations in 2024

After ending 2023 with hundreds more stores than it started the year with, Wingstop has no plans to slow down its breakneck expansion in 2024.

The chef-approved restaurant chain, which primarily serves bone-in wings, boneless wings, and chicken sandwiches in a range of flavors, opened 255 net new locations throughout 2023, according to a new earnings report. This year, it plans to one-up itself by opening a whopping 270 net new restaurants across the globe.

These planned openings will move Wingstop even closer to its long-term goal of reaching 7,000 units. The chain ended 2023 with 2,214 global locations, 1,926 of which are located in the United States. While Wingstop does have quite a ways to go before reaching that ambitious 7,000-unit benchmark, its latest earnings data indicates that it's in a great position to keep growing.

2023 was Wingstop's "strongest year on record," president and CEO Michael Skipworth said in a statement in the new earnings report. The chain saw an impressive 18.3% increase in same-store sales in the United States in 2023, marking its 20th consecutive year of domestic same-store sales growth. Its total revenue also increased 28.7% in 2023 compared to the prior year, while last year's 255 net new openings helped the chain grow its total store footprint by 13%.

"We have a proven playbook and I couldn't be more excited by our opportunity to scale Wingstop to more than 7,000 restaurants," Skipworth said in the statement.

So if you don't currently have a Wingstop near you, don't be too surprised if that changes sometime soon.

Wingstop is one of several restaurant chains with major expansion plans for 2024 and beyond. For example, the popular steakhouse chain Texas Roadhouse and its two sister brands—Bubba's 33 and Jaggers—are expected to open around 44 new restaurants altogether throughout this year. That's almost as high as the 45 locations the three chains debuted in 2023, which Texas Roadhouse CEO Jerry Morgan said was a "record" year for new openings.

Chip City, a dessert chain that serves a rotating selection of massive cookies, also recently announced plans to open 70 new locations across 2024 and 2025. Since the chain currently operates more than 30 locations, those new openings should help it surpass the 100-store milestone. Additionally, the donut and coffee chain Shipley Do-Nuts, which currently operates more than 350 shops across 12 states, is aiming to double in size over the next five years.