First 100 will get a year’s free meals
New Truett’s Chick-fil-A to open Thursday morning
Less than six months after the Chick-fil-A Dwarf House on Shorter Avenue closed, the new Truett’s Chick-fil-A will formally open Thursday. The restaurant and its employees have used a couple of mornings of soft openings to rehearse for the grand opening.
The restaurant was a beehive of activity Tuesday afternoon with paving crews laying asphalt in the parking lot, something they haven’t been able to do for close to a week because of the heavy rains.
The restaurant is a living shrine to Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy, full of pictures and Cathyisms painted on the walls. One in particular asks the question, “How do you know if someone needs encouragement? If they are breathing.”
“We have pulled out all of the stops. This is not only a high-tech, top-of-the-line efficient restaurant, but a showcase for the Chick-fil-A brand and the legacy of Truett Cathy,” said Executive General Manager Greg Major.
As guests enter the res- taurant, they will notice the full-service sit-down table dining area on the right side of the store, almost as if it’s a separate restaurant from the traditional counter service-side on the left. The fullservice room also includes an elevated model railway with a replica of the Robert Redden Footbridge (minus the lighted flag) at one end of the railway.
Customers who prefer to use the drive-through will notice that the ordering area is covered to protect customers as their windows are rolled down in inclement weather. The cover will also protect employees who often go outside to help take orders as the line gets longer.
As customers pick up their order from the drivethrough, employees will actually step through a door, not just a window to dispense the order. That feature is the first in the entire Chick-fil-A chain.
The kitchen in the new restaurant is significantly larger than the old kitchen.
The upsizing of the restaurant has created approximately 140 new jobs that will help the 100 returning team members to greet new and old customers alike.
The temporary Chick-fil-A in the RiverWalk shopping center, made from five shipping containers, will remain open for the foreseeable future.
A hundred adults will win a free Chick-fil-A meal a week for a year. That includes a Chick-fil-A sandwich, medium waffle fries and medium drink. A line will open at 8 a.m. Wednesday. If more than 100 people are in line at that time a drawing will be held to determine who gets to stay in the line for the next 24 hours.
Prizes will be doled out by Major when the restaurant opens around 5:30 Thursday morning.
Major got his start with Chick-filA as a dishwasher at the Jonesboro restaurant in 1987. He helped open the Stockbridge restaurant as assistant general manager in 1993, did a stint as interim general manager in Duluth the following year and was selected to manage the Rome Dwarf House in 1995.
While no longer referred to as a Dwarf House, the “little red door” is returning as part of the walk-in entrance to the shiny new 5,000-square-foot building.