Chick-fil-A, the popular restaurant chain that drew a small tent city of eager customers before it opened its first franchise in Palm Coast eight years ago, will be opening its second restaurant in the city in the BJ’s Wholesale shopping center, according to construction plans recently submitted to the city. City Manager Lauren Johnston dropped a hint about the restaurant in a presentation at a local chamber event earlier this week.
Chick-fil-A will join Miller’s Ale House, which opened in August, and Texas Longhorn, opening soon, among the satellite parcels of the shopping center along State Road 100, making it easily accessible for its heavily used drive-in windows.
The company had a pre-application meeting with the city about two weeks ago. According to the Chick-fil-A site plan obtained by FlaglerLive, the restaurant will be a 5,000-square-foot facility seating 70 indoors and 16 outdoors, with 69 parking spaces (six for persons with disabilities), the whole lot taking up 80,000 square feet, or 1.8 acres. Chick-fil-A is notorious for creating traffic problems around its restaurants. At this second location in Palm Coast, the drive-through lines will allow for up to 38 cars at a time in two lanes, 48 cars at peak times, a staggering number.
The restaurant is projecting 10 employees per shift.
The restaurant will be on the lost east of Miller’s Ale House. There are five “outparcels” in from of BJ’s, three of them now filled by restaurants, a fourth to be filled by a Chase Bank, and a fifth will be occupied by an office-type business, Mengel said: that office-type concern announced its interest just this week.
The entirety of the BJ’s Wholesale site is being annexed into Palm Coast, but based on the pre-annexation agreement with the county, “as those individual outparcels develop and get their COs,” Adam Mengel, the county’s development director, said, referring to certificates of occupancy, “at the time of CO, they will annex into the city.” But the site plan was submitted to the city.
The College Park, Ga.-based company that opened with one restaurant in 1946 now has 3,059 restaurants in all but two states (Vermont and Alaska), according to ScrapeHero, the data company, including 246 in Florida. It is the largest chicken-sandwich chain in the country, though last year it began offering a non-meat sandwich. It is privately held.
Its corporate mission, according to its website, is to “glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us” and “To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A,” though the first part of that mission has led to both boycotts and surges of popularity for the company–boycotts by groups or even local governments opposed to the company’s pronounced stance against same-sex marriage, and surges of popularity countermanding the boycotts. The company has in recent years softened its ideological stance and ceased contributing money to certain organizations perceived as less than “a positive influence” on large segments of the population.
An opening date is not yet known: Chick-fil-A’s “press room” had not responded to an inquiry before this article initially published.
Willy James says
Sorry Lauren, I don’t see anything to celebrate as you would have us believe. Don’t sound the trumpets of victory! The area needs real jobs that will drive economic development. Instead of fast food restaurants, Dollar General stores, gas stations and storage facilities, get you head of your ass and focus on industrial blue and white collar jobs. Palm Coast has a lot to offer when you look at selling points. We have the Intercostal Waterway, I-95, rail, airport that can handle light transport, and good education opportunities unless the Governor further screws it up.
So, Palm Coast/FCBOC political leaders, lead for once and get focused on bringing real jobs that the workforce will have a living wage.