Slim Chickens drive-thru opens for first time in Wales
Boparan Restaurant Group is opening the first drive-thru it has built itself for Slim Chickens, at Broughton Shopping Park in Flintshire, Wales, from October.
Slim Chickens is opening its first drive-thru in Wales, at Broughton Shopping Park in Flintshire, this October.
The unit is a standalone building designed for cars, not a counter fitted into an existing restaurant. It is the first drive-thru the US fried-chicken chain has opened on the British mainland, even though it is not the brand's first UK drive-thru overall.
Boparan Restaurant Group operates the site. The company is Slim Chickens' UK master franchise partner and already runs more than 80 of the brand's restaurants across the country, the first of which opened in 2018.
We've got ambitious plans for the drive-thru format, and Broughton gives us the opportunity to take everything people love about Slim Chickens.
Slim Chickens drive-thru format is new for Boparan
Broughton is the first drive-thru Boparan has built itself, a format the group had not tested before. Rich Pigott, the company's managing director, said the site lets it apply what works in its sit-down restaurants to a faster, car-focused layout: "We've got ambitious plans for the drive-thru format, and Broughton gives us the opportunity to take everything people love about Slim Chickens... and bring it to guests in a completely new way."
A second site, a different operator
Slim Chickens' actual first UK drive-thru opened at Sprucefield Retail Park near Lisburn, Northern Ireland, in October 2024, run by a separate franchisee, KK Restaurants SW Ltd. Boparan itself opened the brand's first UK airport site earlier in 2026, with concessions operator The Restaurant Group. Broughton is the first drive-thru Boparan has built itself, and the first on the British mainland.
The menu matches what Slim Chickens already serves at its sit-down restaurants: hand-breaded chicken tenders, wings, sandwiches, wraps and salads, plus hand-spun shakes and Texas toast. Diners choose from 15 house sauces.
Wales has been trying to make itself cheaper to open in. Business rates for pubs and cafés in the country are due to fall by 30 percent, part of a wider push to offset rising food and labour costs for hospitality operators.
Fried-chicken franchising elsewhere has not been uniformly smooth. A seven-unit Dave's Hot Chicken franchisee filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US in September, a reminder that rapid growth in the category carries real operating risk.
Boparan has not said how many more drive-thru sites it plans to open, or where. Broughton will be the test case.
