🎉 Xenia raises $12M Series A and announces 2 new AI capabilities

Learn More

White cross or X mark on a black background.

Slim Chickens

How Slim Chickens Modernized Franchise Auditing and Reporting Across Its Network
Slim Chickens, a fast-growing fast-casual chicken brand with franchise locations across the U.S., partnered with Xenia to modernize its corporate audit processes and field reporting operations. By transitioning from a legacy tool and manual workflows, the brand centralized its quality assurance programs—including HACCP line checks, Steritech food safety audits, and OPS Excellence assessments—into a single, configurable platform. The result: cleaner data, custom reporting dashboards, and a scalable operational foundation ready to deploy to franchisees nationwide.
Business Highlights
Number of Locations:
100+
Industry:
Restaurant
Xenia Client Since:
2025
Use Case
Audit management Custom reporting dashboards Franchise operations standardization
Before Xenia

Challenges

Legacy tool lacked flexibility for custom audit categorization and reporting
Audit data was siloed, making cross-location trend analysis difficult
Manual processes for food safety, speed of service, and compliance tracking
After Xenia

Successes

Fully digitized audit templates with automated scoring and issue categorization
Custom analytics dashboards providing real-time visibility into compliance and completion rates
Pre-configured operational framework ready to deploy across the franchisee network

Company Overview

Slim Chickens is a fast-casual restaurant brand specializing in hand-battered chicken tenders and wings, with a growing network of franchise and corporate locations across the United States. Known for its Southern-inspired menu and commitment to quality, the brand has expanded rapidly while maintaining a strong focus on operational consistency and food safety standards.

As the company scaled, leadership recognized the need for a more robust and flexible operations platform—one capable of handling the complexity of multi-location auditing, adapting to evolving corporate standards, and ultimately serving as the operational backbone for its growing franchise system.

Searching for Solutions

Slim Chickens evaluated its options after identifying critical limitations in its existing operations tool. The team needed a platform that could go beyond basic checklists and they required the ability to build and categorize complex audit templates, generate meaningful cross-location reports, and give leadership a real-time view into how locations were performing across multiple quality dimensions.

After assessing available solutions, Slim Chickens selected Xenia for its combination of configurable audit templates, robust reporting infrastructure, and the flexibility to adapt workflows to the brand's specific operational standards. The team viewed Xenia not just as a replacement tool, but as a long-term partner capable of growing alongside their franchise network.

Xenia's Impact

Building a Foundation for Franchise-Wide Consistency

Slim Chickens used its Xenia implementation to systematically digitize and refine each of its core corporate audit templates. The team worked through its Steritech Food Safety audit, HACCP line checks, and OPS Excellence assessment—categorizing every question to enable meaningful data segmentation and reporting. This process ensured that every flagged item could be traced to a specific operational category, transforming raw audit data into actionable intelligence.

One example of this precision: the team restructured their speed-of-service tracking to accurately capture drive-through lane total times, converting a previously ambiguous metric into a clear yes/no threshold tied to a 4-minute, 30-second standard—with a comment field for GMs to log the actual time on record. This kind of configuration work, applied carefully across hundreds of audit questions, means Slim Chickens corporate can now surface and compare performance trends across locations at a glance.

Custom Dashboards That Tell the Full Story

With audit data properly categorized, Slim Chickens leveraged Xenia's custom analytics tools to build tailored reporting views for ownership and operations leadership. Rather than relying on generic dashboards, the team constructed dedicated report modules for each audit type—Steritech, HACCP, and OPS Excellence—so leadership can quickly switch between views and zero in on the metrics that matter most.

The dashboards surface completion rates, flagged issue trends by category, audit scores, and location-level performance data, all updated in real time. These views are set as the default home screen for the owner role, giving leadership an immediate operational snapshot every time they open Xenia. Scheduled email reports are also being configured to deliver completion data directly to General Managers, ensuring accountability flows to the store level without requiring manual follow-up.

Xenia Tools

  • Customizable audit templates for HACCP, Steritech, and OPS Excellence assessments
  • Issue categorization and flagging for real-time compliance tracking
  • Custom analytics dashboards with role-based reporting views
  • Scheduled email reporting for GMs and operations leadership

Before Xenia

Challenges

Legacy tool lacked flexibility for custom audit categorization and reporting
Audit data was siloed, making cross-location trend analysis difficult
Manual processes for food safety, speed of service, and compliance tracking
After Xenia

Successes

Fully digitized audit templates with automated scoring and issue categorization
Custom analytics dashboards providing real-time visibility into compliance and completion rates
Pre-configured operational framework ready to deploy across the franchisee network
3 core corporate audit types fully digitized within Xenia
100% of Steritech Food Safety questions categorized for filtered reporting
4:30 min drive-through speed of service standard enforced via automated flagging
"As we bring franchisees on, depending on their level of sophistication, we can help them really get organized and maintain brand standards.”
Josh Schlueter
Operations Leader

See what Xenia could do for you

Get a Demo