Founded in 1994, Frisco, Texas-based Layne's Chicken Fingers surpassed the 30-unit mark this year.
• Doug McGuire, who owns eight Arby’s units, plans to open his new restaurants in Ohio starting next spring.
• Layne’s expects to nearly double its unit count in the coming years with agreements in place to open 50 more locations.
Doug McGuire made the case that being a certified tax accountant has helped him run a financially sound restaurant company.
It’s also allowed him to keep his best accounting employees on the payroll throughout the year.
“The tax business is pretty much a seasonal job, so it’s nice to be able to keep some of my employees who’ve been with us from the beginning to keep going by having them help keep track of the financials of our restaurants during our down time. It’s been a big help with the financial management and health of our business,” said McGuire, who juggles running three H&R Block offices with operating eight Arby’s in Ohio.
McGuire’s restaurant business—which got its start when he and his father entered the Arby’s system 18 years ago in Bucyrus, Ohio—is about to get a lot busier. The veteran restaurateur signed a 22-unit development agreement with Layne’s Chicken Fingers in north central Ohio and expects to open his first Layne’s next spring in Lima.
He said he isn’t intimidated by the pressure to develop nearly two dozen high-volume restaurants over the next 10 to 12 years.
Tax adviser and franchisee Doug McGuire owns eight Arby's in Ohio. He signed a 22-unit agreement with Layne's Chicken Fingers.
“We’re very happy with our Arby’s restaurants, but Arby’s has pretty much saturated the Ohio market with not a lot of room for us to grow there with the brand,” said McGuire, the CEO and founder of Bucyrus-based Northstar Restaurant Group. “So we started looking at chicken brands, which is a popular segment, especially with the younger generation. After considering various concepts, we chose Layne’s, which I think does chicken best and had the territories we’re already in available. We feel Ohio is a great market to grow this brand.”
McGuire enters a new quick-service brand that’s on a bit of a growth spurt.
The Frisco, Texas-based company was founded in 1994 and surpassed the 30-unit mark this year. Including McGuire’s 22-unit agreement, Layne’s has inked five multi-unit agreements with experienced franchisees in 2025 for 50 more restaurants. For the first time in its 31-year history, Layne’s opened two restaurants on the same day, July 14, in Appleton, Wisconsin, and in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Last summer, the company signed a 25-unit agreement in Texas with a large Whataburger franchisee.
The investment range to open a Layne’s location is $451,500 to $1.1 million, with different buildout options available. The average unit volume for traditional restaurants comes in just below $2 million, according to the franchise disclosure document.
McGuire plans to ramp up quickly with Layne’s by opening two to three locations a year starting in 2026. He said he plans to build 2,400-square-foot restaurants with seating and drive-thru lanes.
He said his Arby’s, which are between 2,600 and 2,800 square feet with seating for 45 to 70 customers, are performing at or slightly above the system AUV of $1.3 million. He said 70 to 75 percent of sales come from drive-thru business and anticipates that his Layne’s restaurants will also derive much of their sales from drive-thru with a younger, on-the-go demographic.
“The restaurant business has gone through a lot of changes over the years and the one thing we’ve learned with our Arby’s is you have to keep adapting to the new trends, which I think the company has done well,” McGuire said. “The only thing holding Layne’s back right now is brand recognition and we look forward to bringing more awareness to a great brand in Ohio.”
McGuire expects his biggest challenge developing Layne’s will be finding good real estate opportunities in high-traffic markets to either build or convert existing restaurants. Of the eight Arby’s he owns, seven were new builds.
The father of five said he’d consider adding other restaurant brands to his portfolio and passing on the family’s restaurant business to his children.
“We’ve got three kids in college and two in high school and I anticipate more than one of them will come back and work in the business,” he said. “Who knows, they might decide they like it so much they may want to take over the business someday.”