Ten years after the fanatically popular brand’s first local restaurant opened off Palm Coast Parkway, Chick-fil-A is set to open its second restaurant next Tuesday–Veterans Day, curiously, but at half past the sixth, rather than the 11th, hour–off State Road 100, in the BJ’s Wholesale shopping center.
Traffic on State Road 100, long a bane of the road’s drivers and of local officials, is not about to get better.
Glenn Efford, an old hand with the company who opened the previous Palm Coast Chick-fil-A (and has been opening restaurants for two decades), is the owner-operator of the new one as well, to be called Chick-fil-A Seminole Woods. The older location hired some 80 employees by opening day. The new one is “creating approximately 100 new jobs,” according to a release.
The company announced the restaurant opening at 5865 State Route 100 in a release this morning through Jackson Spalding, the Atlanta-based PR and marketing firm.
“To celebrate the opening, Efford and team are calling on the community to show their spots on opening day,” the release reads. “Whether it’s a full cow suit or a simple cow-spotted accessory, Guests of all ages are invited to join the fun. Anyone who visits the restaurant on opening day dressed in cow attire can redeem one free entrée or kid’s meal inside the restaurant or in the drive-thru.”
It’s quite a change from how Chick-fil-A used to mark its openings. Back when the Palm Coast Parkway location opened, hundreds of people camped out 24 hours or more before the opening to be eligible for a raffle. The 100 winners got a year’s worth of free food–or, more precisely, vouchers for 52 meals (the Chick-fil-A sandwich, coleslaw, fries and a drink) spread out at whatever pace the winner chose. The gift was valued at $300 per winner, going by the posted price.
No more. The “First 100” events ended during Covid and were never revived. The cow-themed opening is one of a number of opening gimmicks the company offers, and of course it’s considerably cheaper for Chick-fil-A. Some new restaurants continue to offer a variation of the free meals, but targeted at first responders or other local heroes.
At every one of its openings, the company also makes a $25,000 donation to Feeding America, the food pantry provider, or Second Harvest (in Canada). It would be out of place for the company to make that donation to Feeding America on behalf of the new Palm Coast store when the community is rallying around Flagler Broadcasting’s Food-A-Thon this Friday in hopes of raising at least $100,000 for Grace Community Food Pantry. (Chick-fil-A is bringing free food to WNZF’s studios for the Food-A-Thon, but the food value will be considerably less than the free advertising value they’ll get for it by boasting about it on the air).
The company routinely donates to food banks. It is privately held, but reported $22.7 billion in sales in 2024 (in its annual franchise disclosure document), up from $21.6 billion in 2023. Until last year, the company experienced annual sales growth of over 10 percent. It was 5.4 percent last year as restaurant prices have risen sharply.
The company’s annual “Global Impact Report” for 2025 puts the number of restaurants at more than 3,000, but that includes 425 licensed locations in airports and at college campuses. Actual restaurants number closer to 2,750. The company employs 200,000.
“My inspiration to become a Chick-fil-A local Owner-Operator was about more than a career change – it was about finding a way to make a larger impact in the community I love,” Efford is quoted as saying in the release. “Now, opening a second restaurant, I’m excited to continue that mission by mentoring the next generation of young leaders and serving the growing Palm Coast community with care.” His brother had opened a Chick-fil-A in St. Augustine before Efford opened the first Palm Coast location.
Restaurant hours are the usual Monday through Saturday from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., closing on Sunday in accordance with the company’s insistently Christian tenets as established by founder S. Truett Cathy, a Southern Baptist. (He died in 2014.) The company has always been openly and actively conservative, going as far as donating millions to anti-LGBTQ advocacy organizations. Those contributions ended in 2019. The company has taken a decidedly less strident, more inclusive turn since, appointing Erick McReynolds vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion in 2021. He’d been with the company since 2007 and executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion since July 2020. When extreme-right social media activists discovered the appointment in 2023, they blamed the company of going “woke” (Charlie Kirk was among the critics). The company appears to be standing by its more inclusive approach.
Jay Tomm says
More traffic….JOY!
Really annoyed says
It’s nothing more than a traffic jam. The food is horrible.!
FedUp says
Why not build a shopping mall along SR 100 too? I’m sure the traffic won’t be much worse than it already is. The engineers for this county have to be the most inept and unqualified employees Flagler County and Palm Coast have.
Atwp says
More jobs! Good news.
feddy says
How many Jobs you think this will bring, 40 between 100 is the number. How much will 80% of those jobs pay, 11 to 19 dollars per hour and for managers 40,000 to 60,000 dollars a year. They will bring in most of their managers. I am not knocking any job opportunities at all but this is not a employment bonanza. Manufacturing plants would be good for the area with more higher paid job opportunities and I’m not talking about the concrete plants that has recently been floated around.