11 Alabama restaurant chains that began as mom-and-pop shops [Video]

Almost everybody has a favorite fast-food chain – a place to grab a quick burger for lunch or a drive-thru taco late at night.

While national brands abound to satisfy your cravings, Alabama has its fair share of homegrown chains, most of which started as small, independent “mom-and-pop” shops before branching out.

As part of our Beautiful Alabama summer project, we’ve put together this list of 11 such Alabama chain restaurants, all of which began in the state and many of which remain in the same family.

(Note: For this story, we did not include barbecue restaurant chains, which belong in a category unto themselves.)

Chicken Salad Chick

How it started: Chicken Salad Chick founder Stacy Brown started making her soon-to-be-famous chicken salad out of her home kitchen in Auburn in 2007, and after a little run-in with the health department that turned out to …