I was just thinking about this today downstairs in the food court at the bottom of the office building I work in. Hundreds of people come through there for the lunch rush to dozens of fast food restaurants (sushi, buritoes, Thai etc), all in the space of less than 30x30m including seating. I was thinking: there’s no way you could do this with a drive through.
I don’t get it either. The chicken sandwich is OK at best. A solid 7/10 just for consistency. Everything else is meh. People seem to like their fry sauce, which is probably required to eat their flat tasting waffles fries.
Americans like sauces and dressings on things. Ranch on everything, unless it comes with their own sauce.
I grew up around the East Coast of the US so I’ve been exposed to Chick-fil-A since I was born. Then I lived a good portion of my life in the West Coast, and when Chick-fil-A starting popping up here, people were going nuts over it. I guess they still are and I feel like I’m the only sane one who knows their food is mid at best with all their sauces
Here in New England they’re really struggling from what I’ve seen. Parking lots and drive-thrus empty despite having this crazy 2-lane designed drive-thru. I think different regions have different guilty pleasures.
They are very popular and actually have quick service once you finally get through the long line. Most of the ones around where I lived switched to two lanes. They were rated as having g the highest quality service for any fast food chain as well.
I think a lot of the comments here mischaracterize chik fil a as another shitty burger joint in a way that would be confusing to people that never seen one. They make really good chicken sandwiches because chicken sandwiches is almost the only thing they make. While most fast food joints might have 1-3 people running it during non-peak hours, chic fil a constantly has a small army in there. I don’t even know how so many people stay busy but that crazy looking line pictured will be cleared out in under 10 minutes.
Before I started actively boycotting them for their support of anti-LGBTQ work, I always felt their chicken was only ok. I think burger king’s Ch’King is way better and that Arby’s chicken sandwich is also superior. When they finally got to my market I was thrilled and then very quickly let down.
I asked a bi friend of mine his thoughts about the whole donation thing, and they included “it’s a great fucking sandwich” so he’s my out to get one when I am in the US.
As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I don’t begrudge you that at all. My feelings on the matter are my own and I don’t need or expect others to conform to them.
I just also happen to not like them at all so it helps with the boycott 😅
Unfortunately for most Americans, this is the situation. All of those places have a mediocre chicken sandwich because all of the restaurants are chains. Small businesses struggle with how new commercial areas are built, and chains run on such thin margins it is hard to compete.
I live in a Chicago neighborhood and have access to many delicious, reasonably priced chicken sandwiches. I have not had the need or the craving to go back to chic fila a since
They did but no longer do. The owners may still personally, but if you were to dig into the owners of every company you’d probably come to the conclusion that there is no ethical consumption under capitolism.
I don’t see anywhere they’ve done either of those things. The closest they’ve come is saying on Facebook that they’ll stay out of the “policy debate”: www.facebook.com/ChickfilA/…/10151226208515101
Being decent to every human shouldn’t be considered politics.
Been to Chik-Fil-A before, they arent even that great, or at least not especially compelling compared to kfc or popeyes. maybe im missing something though idk.
Deffo not so good I’d wait in a line longer then about four cars for them, and in my neck of the woods they have not caught on to that extent. Three of them by me and the lines are fairly minimal at each. So either amazing staff or folks dgaf about them. I’m leaning towards latter personally.
That must be the case because we had a Cracker Barrel around here too and it failed pretty hard. Chik-Fil-A is surviving somehow though so I guess enough of their base is around for that at least.
Also “chick filet” is literally meaning “a cut of baby chicken carcass”.
They also have a history of donating to christian camps that try to convert homosexuals (usually children) to become heterosexual using physical and psychological torture.
There’s a Chick-fil-a in my town that had to pay to redo the parking lot multiple times because cunts would block the street to get into the drive thru.
An American fast food restaurant with two drive-through lines wrapping entirely around the building, along with at least 10 curb-side pickup parking spots. At least 48 visible vehicles waiting for their christian bigotry-flavored chicken sandwiches and nuggets (Chick-Fil-A is the name of the restaurant).
We don’t have one where I live, and every time my wife and I go to relatives houses where one is, she keeps telling me how good their food was growing up. I’ve never had them, and by the time I could drive to another town that had one, I was well aware of how shitty they are.
So every holiday, she breaks out the gift cards we got at our wedding, and asks if we can go this time. I’ve explained to her why I refuse to go. She agrees they’re shitty. She still wants to eat there. So I tell her “I won’t try to stop you from eating there, but I won’t be joining you.”
Unfortunately this attitude also makes me drive almost an hour to get things for some hobbies because I refuse to shop at hobby lobby. Most of their stuff feels like “curated aliexpress” though. Cheap shit, but someone found the best cheap shit. Someone gifted me a leather stamp from there that snapped on its second hit. Looked nice though.
I mean if you have a gift card then the money is already spent. Might as well get what was paid for rather than let them have the free money. Especially since she’s your wife and it will make her happy to share what is clearly a beloved part of her childhood with you.
As for your last point, remember, there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. The only way to really consume ethically is to simply consume less. If that fails and you’re spending the money anyways, might as well do what brings the best value to you and yours so you can pass the savings on to what you do value. There are worse things than fringe homophobia that your dollar may be supporting at another shop which receives less media coverage than hot button issues like the identity politics that are always in the news. Don’t know where you prefer to shop but just the act of going so far out of your way supports oil companies, for example, in a way that it wouldn’t have otherwise. If you’re in an EV, that supports exploitative lithium mining by reducing battery life (however slight) and your local corrupt power monopolies when you charge it back up.
Just my unsolicited two cents, do with it what you will. It’s cope, to be sure, but sometimes you just have to cope with what you can’t change. Give me the serenity to accept what I can’t change, the courage to change what I can and knowing the difference and all that.
I can see the appeal of fast food when you really can’t be arsed to make anything, or you’re away from home or whatever, but I can’t fathom why you would wait in a line that is charitably going to take an hour to get to you, for incredibly bland food.
Especially when you could park up, go inside and skip the massive queue of cars. Or just eat literally anywhere else.
Tbf the people at the end of this line will wait maximum 20 minutes. They can achieve this because instead of doing the typical intercom->window fast food setup they have employees outside walking between cars and putting the order into iPads, then another set walking food to your car.
On another note, those outdoor employees are regularly forced to stay outside in extreme heat and cold without proper protection. If they want to wear a jacket it has to be a Chick-fil-A jacket, which they have to buy from the company. Lots of videos online about people working the drive thru line.
How’s it meant to be pronounced? I’ve only ever seen it written down.
Chick feeler? Chick filler? Chick fill urgh Chick fill Ah
I just don’t understand what they’re trying to call it. Unless it is “filler”, my best guess is something like “fillet”, though I can’t make the letters match up with the words.
Chick-Fil-A is pronounced Chick-fuh-lay. It is like Chick-Filet, but the American pronunciation of filet (and what I would assume the proper French pronunciation – the ‘t’ is silent).
The only reason the lines backup now is because they don’t use the normal drive thru system anymore. They try to be innovative and have people standing outside with iPads to take your order. Then you sit and wait for them to cook it all because they took too many orders at one time.also they usually have multiple lines all merge into one window. It’s madness over at the chic fil a drive thru!
Having worked at a Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and a Chick-fil-A… The Chick-fil-A system is superior. At least from an employee standpoint. The amount of volume that we could move through the drive thru with the two lane system and people taking orders in person was kind of insane.
It is exactly like you said, but the line moves! It’s nothing like other fast food restaurants. Yes chick looks like madness, but it’s a controlled madness. It reminds me of Costco. If you been there during peak hours, it’s a total madhouse. But, a controlled madhouse.
Idk before our Chick-Fil-A added the second line and started with the iPads, the line extended out onto the four lane road leading into the parking lot and back a block or two.
Same with the restaurant I work at, the parking lot is woefully too small for the volume of traffic we get, and the line regularly spills onto one of the busiest roads in town and holds up traffic badly. We’re the third busiest restaurant of its brand in Canada.
Exactly, why would you wait in line for drive-in when you can just park your car and order inside? I thought the concept of drive-in was invented to save time, not waste it.
In North America it is common to have about 75% of the staff focus on filling drive thru orders while the rest handle walk ins. I’ll frequently see 4-5 employees working different stations to make the drive thru flow while 1 employee has to handle all the work (except maybe the grill) for the walk ins.
In nearly every aspect of life in North America, you are treated as a second class citezen if you walk instead of drive.
Where I work, most of the staff are focused on the drivethru. You have only 3 employees for dine-in and DoorDash/Uber/Skip. One makes all of the sandwiches, one runs back and forth to grab drinks and fries from the stations, and the other is the front counter order taker. We still get horribly overwhelmed because people tend to show up in large groups, usually high school students or seniors. The poor fry station person has to make both the drivethru and dine-in orders quickly.
They stopped donating to anti-LGBT organizations 11 years ago (except for FCA and the Salvation Army, organizations that are considered anti-LGBT due to stances, not actions. They stopped donating to those in 2020 anyways.)
Don’t really want to support a place that makes their minimum wage employees stand outside to take people’s orders either. That includes In N Out. And Dutch Brothers. Also none of them are as good as all the crowds imply, I don’t really get it.
The owner, Dan Cathy, is still actively involved with groups such as the National Christian Foundation, an organization spearheading the derailment of the Equality Act.[11]
Thank you! It drives me crazy how threads about chick fil-a are always exactly the same. “Bigots” and “chicken sucks anyway”. Something didn’t pass the smell test.
Doesn’t change the fact that they ever decided to donate to them in the first place. Some things you just don’t get to come back from; sucks to be you.
Reminds me of a joke:
So a man walks into a bar, and sits down. He starts a conversation with an old guy next to him. The old guy has obviously had a few. He says to the man:
“You see that dock out there? Built it myself, hand crafted each piece, and it’s the best dock in town! But do they call me “McGregor the dock builder”? No! And you see that bridge over there? I built that, took me two months, through rain, sleet and scorching weather, but do they call me “McGregor the bridge builder”? No! And you see that pier over there, I built that, best pier in the county! But do they call me “McGregor the pier builder”? No!”
The old guy looks around, and makes sure that nobody is listening, and leans to the man, and he says:
Since we’re already splitting hairs and crap like that around here I’d like to point out that it does not, in fact, suck to be Chick-fil-A. They’re raking in billions and don’t give a rat’s ass.
Also yes, dissolve the company. … But gimme their weird chickeny pickle sandwiches and nugget-things because for some reason I like them 😰 Won’t buy them for myself though.
If every pro-LGBT person was like you, then stopping those donations would have accomplished nothing for them and they might as well have kept doing it.
What are you talking about? I didn’t want to just not give them credit for changing; I wanted to destroy them for having committed the offense in the first place.
Corporations are not people. Corporations do not have freedom of speech. Incorporation is a privilege, and when that privilege is abused to spread hate, it should be revoked.
Yeah, I don’t really know a better word for it. I was referring to how you turned my “they haven’t done it for years” into defense of them doing it, and then also insulted their product so colorfully. Maybe “extreme” would have been a better word? Less specific, but I think that’s okay.
Well my comment was certainly biased! It seems like people who grew up eating their food like it a lot more than people who didn’t, so I wanted to be sure to make that jab that I don’t think their food is that good.
As for how long it’s been since they took that stance… I dunno, I do think it’s different for average folk in the 90s to make cultural commentary that perpetuates homophobia. What CFA did was bigger, on a systemic level with the aim of affecting policy, and it was at least 20 years later when there already had been a major cultural shift against homophobia. I’d give an individual a pass on improving their bigotry much more easily than I would a corporation.
Add comment