Zaxby’s to leave Oconee

Seven years after the Oconee Board of Commissioners granted Zaxby’s request for an expansion off Daniels Bridge Road that could have eventually housed 1,000 employees, the company has decided to move its corporate offices to metro-Atlanta by early 2024 and downsize its Oconee-based staff. 

Throughout 2022 and in the first few months of 2023, the company has been offering severance packages to corporate employees in Oconee County. Those who are staying have been informed that the company headquarters will relocate to Perimeter Summit in Brookhaven, DeKalb County within the first quarter of 2024. 

A lot has changed for the regional chicken chain in the past three years. In late 2020, Zaxby’s co-founder and Oconee County resident Tony Townley sold his shares of the company to a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs. Then a year later, co-founder and alumnus of Oconee County High School Zach McLeroy stepped down as CEO but stayed on as chairman. He was replaced by Bernard Acoca, the former CEO of El Pollo Loco. More recently, the company has severed ties with CFO Blake Bailey, who declined to comment for this story. 

A Zaxby’s spokesperson declined to answer questions for this story, including an inquiry into the number of Oconee employees affected by layoffs, whether the remaining Oconee staff will be given an option to work remotely and what the company will do with its local infrastructure. 

For more on this story, see the March 16 edition of The Oconee Enterprise, on sale now at convenience stores and grocery stores and newspaper boxes throughout Oconee County. To subscribe, call (706) 769-5175 or visit the tab on our website.