The founders of a fast-growing, quick-service restaurant chain specializing in chicken tenders had just about everything in place to launch. They just needed a name.
Thad Hudgens called his father and asked if he had a childhood nickname he couldn’t remember. He did. It was Magoo.
Matt Armstrong called his mom and asked the same. He had a niece, who at the time, couldn’t pronounce Matt, so she called him Huey.
The two former college golfers at the University of Mississippi, who since moved to the Orlando area, near the University of Central Florida campus, then looked at each other, as Andy Howard explained.
“Magoo, Huey, Huey Magoo,” Howard said. “They said it a thousand times. And they said, ‘You know what, it doesn’t sound bad.’ You ask everybody you know, what do you think, what do you think, what do you think? And everybody loves it.”
The newest Huey Magoo’s Chicken Tenders — and the first of several planned for Southwest Florida — opened this year at 1511 NE Pine Island Road in Cape Coral in a new shopping center.
Howard was an ingredient Hudgens and Armstrong didn’t at the time realize they needed for their business aspirations.
“I’m the president, CEO and largest shareholder of the company,” said Howard, who bought the majority of the company 10 years ago. Hudgens and Armstrong remain involved.
Howard is a former executive with Wingstop, which specializes in chicken wings. He helped take that franchise from 80 to 600 locations before leaving and looking to establish a new concept.
Enter Huey Magoo’s.
Since buying Huey Magoo’s and building a corporate franchise apparatus to support it, that chain has grown from the original two Orlando locations to 74 locations in 12 states, with more than 100 more being planned.
In Southwest Florida, Huey Magoo’s is looking to expand to Fort Myers, near Florida Gulf Coast University and on the corner of U.S. 41 East and Bayshore Drive in East Naples. Although a lease has yet to be signed, Howard said he hoped something could be announced by the end of the year.
“Leaving Wingstop, I said ‘Boy, if I can just find the world’s greatest chicken tender, with kind of a similar model to Wingstop, small, strip center locations, we’d be on to something,’” Howard said. “The company was not for sale, but these guys could see my background. We came together, and I bought majority control. They continued on as my partners.”
Drew Stamm, the Cape Coral Huey Magoo’s general manager, relocated years ago to Naples from his hometown of Indianapolis. He has been in the restaurant business for more than 20 years, having worked at a Hooters as a teenager and most recently as the sous-chef at Tommy Bahama’s and The Bevy in Naples.
“My career started at a chicken place, so it’s kind of gone full circle,” Stamm said. “Huey Magoo’s is the filet mignon of chicken.
“It’s the top 3% of chicken. It’s the actual tenderloin itself. Whereas other chicken tender places use chicken breast or other parts of the chicken, ours is the actual tenderloin.”
