tesg's guide to big chain road food consumption

CHAIN -- Chick-fil-A
Owner -- Privately held 
Primary Operating Region -- Shopping malls and high profile frontage
Number of Locations -- 1,350 (2007)

So Bish is gushing about Chick-fil-A.  She's going there tomorrow and can't wait.  "Katie and I have it all figured out...We're going to open our own Chick-fil-A, and it'll be open on Sundays and serve beer!"

So I break her heart and explain why that will never happen.  At least the opening on Sundays part.  

I'm sure she'll get over it.

Okay, maybe not.  Bish is all about the drama.  But she did get me to finally try Chick-fil-A.  The free samples at the malls over the years didn't do it.  The "Eat Mor Chikin" billboards with the big plastic cows didn't do it.  It's all Bish's fault.

Bish isn’t alone.  Chick-Fil-A has a cult-like status with women.  They are fanatical about the sandwich.  To them, Chick-Fil-A is the “Lite FM” of fast food.

Samuel Truett Cathy and brother Ben (who was killed a few years later in a plane crash) opened The Dwarf Grill in 1946, named as such because of its small size, and renamed "Dwarf House" in 1951 while opening a second location.  Cathy came up with his chicken sandwich through a cooking method of his mother's and an opportunity to purchase scrap breast meat. The sandwich was a hit at the Dwarf House.  The Chick-fil-A brand was trademarked in 1963 with the intention of selling the pre-breaded breasts to existing restaurants to add to their menus, which he did for a time.  But in 1967, amid concerns of quality control, Cathy opened the first Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta's Greenbriar mall.  The chain grew from there.

Free-standing locations debuted in 1986.  Today, more than half of all Chick-fil-A's are free-standing locations.  Chick-fil-A still runs a chain of Dwarf House-branded restaurants in the Atlanta area  Chick-fil-A also has a couple of restaurants called Truett's Grill.  Truett is still Chairman, and his sons are both executives.

The original menu was basically the sandwich, fries, coleslaw, pie, and lemonade.  It's expanded a bit since then.  The big thing on the menu is still the chicken sandwich.  It's a lightly breaded thick chicken breast fried in peanut oil and served on a plain hamburger bun with nothing but a couple of pickle slices.  You pay extra for lettuce and tomato.  But the good news is there's a vast assortment of mayonnaise packets (regular and light) available.  I find the sandwich is best with mayo on top and mustard on the bottom with the pickles.  It's better fresh when it's hot and juicy rather than sitting for a period of time.  If you see Chick-Fil-A people serving sandwiches to customers immediately without leaving the order position instead of having to run back for sandwiches, hang back a bit until they run out.

There's also a couple of char-broiled chicken sandwiches, a chicken salad sandwich, chicken strips, chicken nuggets, wraps, salads, "Waffle Fries", soup, or even a fruit cup.  The drinks include fresh-squeezed lemonade.  Desserts include cheesecake.  Chick-fil-A offers party trays featuring some of their chicken products and their cheesecake.  Chick-fil-A is now also offering breakfast.

The sandwich is good.  The chicken soup is fabulous.  The lemonade is unbeatable.  Everything else on the menu sucks.  The chicken nuggets, strips, wraps…everything sucks.  Hardly any flavor at all.  Bish will make a case for the waffle fries, and that’s fair because I’m not much of a fry person in the first place.  I can’t believe anybody eats here at breakfast.  The Chick-Fil-A worshiping women I am acquainted with all have the same answer when I ask about their take on the full menu …”I never get anything but the sandwich.”

What really makes Chick-fil-A stand out is those "Eat More Chikin" cows.  The billboard campaign has been wildly successful.  The cows are used in all promotional material and even star in a hit annual calendar.

And no, you won't find a Chick-fil-A open on Sundays.  The deeply religious Cathy feels Sundays are for worship, rest, and family.  Poor Bish.  But there's still six days of the week to eat mor chikin, and I'm sure she will.

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