Two childhood friends, a college town and a short name.

Zaxbys began in March 1990 in Statesboro, Georgia, close to the campus of Georgia Southern University. English Wikipedia names the founders as the childhood friends Zach McLeroy and Tony Townley, and Restaurant Business described the pair in exactly those terms when it reported on the company’s leadership in October 2021. Wikipedia says the restaurant traded at first simply as “Zax” before the longer name took over, and that it sells chicken fingers, sandwiches, chicken wings, appetisers and salads, with its restaurants largely run by franchisees.

The chain spread from its home state during the 1990s. Wikipedia dates the first Zaxby’s outside Georgia to September 1994, in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and the first openings beyond the south-eastern United States to 2013, when restaurants opened in Utah. Restaurant Business gave the company’s base as Athens, Georgia, another university town, in 2021. More recent expansion has pushed north and west: Wikipedia, citing Restaurant Dive, records plans announced in 2024 for a restaurant in Cambridge, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

The name sets the tone for everything around it. The brand spells its own vocabulary with a trailing z: the menu lists Chicken Fingerz and the loyalty programme is called Zax Rewardz. Dipping sauces come with chicken-finger orders, and Wikipedia describes a range that runs from mild through the house Zax Sauce to a very hot option.

The dining rooms were never standardised to a single look. Wikipedia says Zaxbys restaurants are decorated with assorted whimsical objects and signs that often vary in theme by location and region. Some restaurants in college towns carry decorations tied to the local university, and one location in Orlando, Florida, is lined with citrus-industry themes. After the company announced in December 2013 that it would install Coca-Cola Freestyle machines, the area around the fountain drinks came to be dominated by that dispenser and its own branding, Wikipedia adds.

Goldman Sachs, a new chief executive and an agency change.

On 19 November 2020 Restaurant Dive reported, citing a company press release, that the Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division would acquire a significant stake in Zaxby’s, with terms undisclosed and completion expected by the end of that year. A company spokesperson told the publication the partnership would help the chain grow nationally and potentially internationally. The same report noted new hires to support that growth, including Alan Ludloff as vice president of branding and Vanessa Fox, formerly of Jack in the Box, as chief development officer.

Wikipedia says Tony Townley left the company following the Goldman Sachs deal, while Zach McLeroy stayed on. Goldman Sachs has held a significant stake in the chain since 2020. Restaurant Business reported on 26 October 2021 that Bernard Acoca, who had led El Pollo Loco since 2018 and had earlier been president of the Teavana tea brand within Starbucks, had been named chief executive, with McLeroy becoming chairman from January 2022. McLeroy said in a statement that bringing in a chief executive from outside the founding team would help the chain pursue its opportunities for growth.

Marketing leadership changed in the same period. Restaurant Dive reported in October 2022 that Patrick Schwing, who had joined in June that year from Arby’s as chief marketing and strategy officer, was overseeing a revamped app and loyalty programme. Marketing Dive reported on 23 April 2025 that the creative agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, awarded the account in July 2024, had produced its first campaign for the chain. Schwing told the publication that before the campaign the company had redone its menu, brought it up to date with a new visual identity and revitalised its media programme.

Wikipedia also records a college sponsorship arranged through IMG College under the line “The Official Chicken of Sports Fanz”, a separate agreement with Clemson University, sponsorship of the Heart of Dallas Bowl at the Cotton Bowl Stadium, and NASCAR truck-series sponsorships. In October 2008 the video game Midnight Club: Los Angeles placed a Zaxby’s restaurant on its version of the streets of Los Angeles.

Design and documentation.

Counter-service chains in general carry their identity on a small set of surfaces that a customer handles or reads in a few minutes: the sign above the door, the menu board behind the counter, the cup or bowl that leaves the shop, and the bag or napkin that goes with it. Because the same name has to work on a tall roadside sign and on a printed lid, these marks tend to be drawn as short words or simple shapes that survive being shrunk, embroidered on a uniform or lit from behind.

Colour does a second job on the menu board. A counter-service chain can use a set of colours to group drinks or dishes by flavour or category, so the palette becomes a way of reading the menu as well as a way of recognising the shop. Storefronts add materials, lighting and furniture, and a refit can change how a chain feels without any change to its name.

Each guide below records who started the brand, who has owned it since, and how its name, logo, cups and shops have changed, using dated independent sources and marking what rests on the company’s own word.

A name without its apostrophe and a character called the Sauce Boss.

The most visible recent change to the brand is a matter of punctuation. The design agency ChangeUp said in a news post dated 5 May 2025 that it had refreshed the chain’s visual identity and restaurant environment, and that a key update was removing the apostrophe, moving the name from the possessive Zaxby’s to Zaxbys. The agency presented the change as a way of making the name feel more inclusive while keeping the chain’s Southern heritage. Marketing Dive used the apostrophe-free spelling in its 2025 coverage, while Wikipedia gives the franchisor’s corporate name as Zaxby’s SPE Franchisor LLC, doing business as Zaxbys.

Advertising gave that refreshed identity a character. Marketing Dive reported that the campaign “Who’s Got The Sauce?” would launch on 28 April 2025 across television, online video, social and digital channels, introducing a suave brand character called the Sauce Boss, played by the actor Omar Epps. In the spots he helps a new father, recreational-league basketball players and a couple sharing salads and sandwiches find the “sauce” in their own lives. Schwing told Marketing Dive that the line is a double entendre and that the campaign was meant to be the creative base for future marketing, with enough flexibility to adapt to needs the company could not yet foresee.

Sauces also moved into the grocery aisle. Wikipedia, citing Fox 5 Atlanta, says the company was selling bottled sauces through Walmart, Winn-Dixie and Amazon by July 2024, so the brand name now appears on retail labels as well as on restaurant cups and boxes.

For a design guide, Zaxbys shows how a regional chain can build a voice from a spelling habit — a trailing z on menu items and programmes — and then sharpen it with a single typographic decision, dropping an apostrophe, alongside a refreshed identity and a recurring advertising character. Compare it with Raising Cane’s, another chicken-finger chain that grew out of a college campus, and Popeyes, another chicken chain from the American South. For this guide we use campus navy, sauce red and finger gold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Zaxbys’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.