20 Things You Need to Know about Chick-fil-A’s Success
Who knew you could make so much money selling chicken sandwiches? Chick-fil-A clearly did and its success is enough to make any existing or aspiring restauranteur envious. What exactly are the secrets to Chick-fil-A’s success? Great customer service as well as staying within its niche of selling chicken sandwiches has helped Chick-fil-A leap frog over its competitors. Gone are the days when everyone is grabbing a sub for lunch and instead people are spending their dollars at Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A’s success is even more impressive since its stores are not even open on Sundays. If you are curious about the fast food chain that has its sights on toppling McDonald’s from its perch as the largest restaurant chain in the United States, here’s everything you need to know.
1. The first Chick-fil-A opened in 1967 in Atlanta and since then the chain has grown steadily with 1982 being the only year in Chick-fil-A’s history where it experienced a decline in same store sales.
2. Chick-fil-A generated $18.8 billion in sales in 2022 and is the third largest restaurant chain in the United States behind Starbucks and McDonald’s.
3. Chick-fil-A has experienced an impressive level of growth, growing annually at 15% between 2010 – 2018 while the restaurant industry as a whole only grew by 3.4% during that time period.
4. Chick-fil-A passed Burger King, Wendy’s, Taco Bell and Subway in sales all within one year, in 2019.
5. Subway has suffered the most over the last ten years at the hands of Chick-fil-A. Since 2010 Subway’s market share in the United States has declined from 12% to less than 8%.
6. Chick-fil-A is seen as the greatest threat to McDonald’s dominance. In 2019 McDonald’s conceded that: "a favorite, that our customers want, is a chicken sandwich. Unfortunately, they have to go to Chick-fil-A for it." "Chick-fil-A's results demonstrate the power of chicken. Yes, we have great Chicken McNuggets and our McChicken is a very good product. But we do not compete in the premium chicken sandwich category, either grilled or crispy."
McDonald’s did not sit still, in 2021 it released three new chicken sandwiches: a Crispy Chicken Sandwich, a Spicy Chicken Sandwich and the Deluxe Chicken Sandwich.
7. Chick-fil-A has more than 3,000 restaurants.
8. Most Chick-fil-A store’s average nearly $8.7 million in sales per year. "That's more than double a McDonald's, and McDonald's is no slouch," said veteran restaurant analyst Mark Kalinowski about Chick-fil-A's non-mall restaurants.
9. Chick-fil-A is the most popular restaurant among teens, ahead of Starbucks and McDonald’s.
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10. One of the keys to Chick-fil-A’s success is its customer service which landed it at the top spot in 2022 on the American Customer Satisfaction Index for restaurant brands for the ninth year in a row. Employees often walk through the drive-thru line taking orders via tablet so that customers do not have to wait as long. Employees are also told to say: “my pleasure” instead of “you’re welcome.” Employees are also known for going above and beyond like one Chick-fil-A employee who took it upon himself to fix a WWII veteran's flat tire.
11. In 2019 Chick-fil-A opened its first international location in Toronto. It plans to open 25 locations in Canada by 2025.
12. It only costs $10,000 to be “granted the rights necessary to operate a franchised Chick-fil-A restaurant business.” That is significantly less than the initial investment of between $1.5 million to $2.5 million it costs to open a McDonald’s. It costs less to open a Chick-fil-A since operators do not own the restaurant or the land.
13. Chick-fil-A pays for equipment, real estate and start-up costs for store operators. “The reason why it’s only $10,000 is because Chick-fil-A controls everything,” says Joel Libava, a franchise consultant. “You can call yourself a franchisee, but you’re an operator.” Each month operators pay a percentage of sales to head office for things like equipment and business services as well as a cut of profits and a franchisee fee. Unlike other restaurant chains since Chick-fil-A owns the restaurant it cannot be passed down to the next generation or be gifted to others.
14. Chick-fil-A operators are expected to be hands on and are not allowed to have other jobs outside of the one they have at Chick-fil-A. They are also not allowed to operate more than one Chick-fil-A location.
15. It is extremely difficult to become a Chick-fil-A franchise operator. Chick-fil-A receives more than 40,000 applications per year but only grants around 75 - 80 new franchisees. With an acceptance rate of 0.19% it is harder to become be a Chick-fil-A operator than it is to get into Harvard which had an acceptance rate of 4.9% for the class of 2024.
16. Speaking about Chick-fil-A’s founder Truett Cathy, David Farmer, Chick-fil-A’s officer VP, innovation & new ventures said that: “he didn't care so much about getting bigger. He was just obsessed with getting better. He would drill that into us: if you focus on getting better, bigger will take care of itself."
17. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, a practice that began decades ago to observe the Lord’s day of rest. In closing on Sundays Chick-fil-A forgoes an estimated $1 billion in sales.
18. Chick-fil-A has been widely criticized for comments its former CEO, Dan Cathy, made in 2012 when he said he does not support same sex marriage. The company has also come under fire for donations it has made to organizations that are considered to be anti-LGBTQ. In 2019 Chick-fil-A announced it stopped making donations to those types of organizations.
19. While rivals like McDonald’s often have an endless number of menu options (up to 145 at one point) Chick-fil-A sticks to its bread and butter of making chicken and does not serve beef burgers on its main menu.
20. Success is never an accident. Chick-fil-A has high standards, which is demonstrated by how long it takes to develop new menu items. It took four years to create its best-selling original chicken sandwich.