I have now done the unthinkable: I ordered a cheeseburger at Chick-fil-A. While eating (and enjoying) it, I kept my face to the door to make sure one of those cows that encourage us to “eat mor chikin” didn’t walk through with a score to settle.
Before you think this is crazy talk — from a man who may have obtained Mad Cow Disease from the aforementioned burger — let me explain myself.
The restaurant is in Hapeville, Georgia, a suburb just south of Atlanta. It includes a traditional Chick-fil-A where you order your food — mostly chicken, you know — at the counter and sit down to eat.
But it’s also the first restaurant started in 1946 by the chain’s founder, Truett Cathy, and called the “Dwarf House” because it has a small door on the side and other characteristics of the seven dwarves’ abode. It still includes the original menu that’s available in a table-service, diner-like area in the same building. Dishes include things like hamburgers, steaks, pancakes, okra and lemon pie.
Cathy, who died in 2014 at 93, was a business genius. He got into the mall food court business just as it was taking off in the 1960s and transitioned out of it to standalone stores located in booming suburban areas just as the malls were declining.
The company is family owned, meaning it doesn’t have to report its finances publicly like the McDonald’s of the world that are traded on stock exchanges. But Chick-fil-A’s website says it had more than $10 billion in revenue in 2018, which made for 51 consecutive years of sales growth. Note that the company has been in business since 1967 — 51 years. Quite the track record.
Anyone who has eaten at a Chick-fil-A knows why. The service is fast and done with a “my pleasure” from the workers; the food is hot and good. The buildings are clean. They cater to young families with play areas and little touches like coverings that stick on the table so kids can eat off them.
It’s so much remarkably better than any of its competitors that you wonder why they can’t copy the ideas for themselves.
And it’s done it all while standing up for Christian morals in a way that is completely unique among American corporations today and stands in the face of incredible opposition from a culture that seems to want to forcibly secularize every aspect of life.
The restaurant, famously, is closed every Sunday so employees can go to church and have a day at rest. It dates back to when Cathy’s original diner in Hapeville was open 24 hours per day, and he decided to take Sunday for faith and family. The economic cost the company faces because of that moral decision is incredible.
I couldn’t find any statistics indicating which days of the week result in the most dining out, but I’m guessing Sunday gets its fair share. You’ve got the after-church crowd and the sleep-in-and-eat-brunch crowd. Plus my family just seems to eat out more on weekends when we’re out of our normal work and school routine. So for estimation purposes, I’m comfortable assuming about 1/7th of a restaurant’s total sales come on Sunday.
If you divide Chick-fil-A’s total sales by the six days per week that is open, you get $1,666,666,667. That provides a rough estimate of how much it loses from not being open on Sunday.
It’s remarkable that a company would continue to stand by its principles when that much money is on the line. In a world that is increasingly rejecting a Christian worldview, Chick-fil-A is an example of how godly wisdom laid out in the Bible continues to provide the best way for mankind to live. Kind of makes you want to eat more chicken, doesn’t it?
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
