City’s first Chick-fil-A set for spring opening
Eatery to serve double order with second location at Las Soleras
Santa Fe’s first Chick-fil-A restaurant expects to be open by early spring on Cerrillos Road with both inside seating and full drive-thru service, a corporate executive said Friday.
Kurt Ebner, the head of construction for the Atlantabased chain, was in Santa Fe to announce the opening of Chickfil-A in the College Plaza South shopping center, 2400 Cerrillos Road, at a site previously occupied by an Asian eatery that is being demolished. The site sits across the parking area from Planet Fitness, Souper Salad and the Smith’s gasoline station.
“This is a great street-front location,” Ebner said. “We feel fortunate to have this property.”
He said the new restaurant will have 4,500 square feet with 120 inside tables and some 70 employees. He said the higher minimum wage in Santa Fe is not a deterrent because the company has almost 2,000 locations that it owns and operates directly and each area has a unique labor market.
ESI Contracting Corp, of Kansas City, Mo., is the general contractor on the project and Ebner expects the restaurant to be open by mid March.
Chick-fil-A has also purchased land next to the Taco Bell in the Las Soleras community at the south end of Cerrillos Road across from the Wal-Mart Supercenter. While the company intends to build a second eatery in Santa Fe, there is no timeline because management wants to focus on the central location first, said Josh Skarsgard, an Albuquerque developer and attorney who is working with the company in New Mexico.