Link here: to be honest, I had not the faintest idea that there was a Chick-fil-A in the UK; and I’m not surprised that a chain with Chick-fil-A’s reputation ran into difficulty.
For reference: Reading is an ugly sprawl of a grossly overgrown market town, home to the sorts of businesses which want to be* near London* (40 miles), but can’t justify the expense of being in London. One of those satellite towns. Ricky Gervais’ The Office was set in Slough, just down the road.
The lease was only for 6 months in the first place. This store was a pilot, to see if it would work in the UK. My sister, who was happy to be a customer there, says the store size and layout are inappropriate for a Chick-Fil-A. When asked about the this report, she said “Coincidence.”
Several years ago, the outrage was that Chick-Fil-A was donating large amounts of money to far-right hate groups. I stopped patronizing them at that point. But I haven’t heard follow-ups. Are they still doing that?
I know that the owner has right-wing Christian views that are not LBGTQ-friendly, but I’m not quite so outraged if he’s simply holding those beliefs and not giving money to groups supporting them.
Yes, they provide large amounts of money to anti-LGBT groups. This article gives an overview of some of their projects in the process of debunking a claim that Chick-fil-a promoted a bill to allow the murder of gay people in Uganda.
An anti-abortion, anti-homosexual rah-rah Christian once offered to buy me a meal at Chick-Fil-A and “we can talk.” I informed him that I would pee my pants before going in there to use their bathroom.
Hey, Chick-Fil-A is free to be anti-homosexual. I’m free not to patronize them. And to be a vegetarian who is happy at this bit of news.
Surprisingly, not all US fast food chains thrive in the UK. Wendy’s came and went rather quickly about 20 years ago, although they’re going to try again next year. Taco Bell is now trying to get a foothold; they’ve got three restaurants in the entirety of London and about two dozen across the country. Chipotle has struggled due to serious health code issues but is still hanging on (although there are other chains like Tortilla and Chilango doing the same thing better).
I can’t say it upsets me that we aren’t overrun by more US fast food chains, but it does surprise me that some don’t last while Wimpy’s (which is dire) soldiers on.
If I may say so, if the restaurants feature the same items as their American counterparts (Hello, bean burrito!) then you guys have hit the fast food junk food jackpot!
Interestingly, there is a Chik-Fil-A dust up at my place of work, Purdue University. The students requested one and there’s a franchise scheduled to open soon in one of the University’s Public/Private partnership multi-use buildings.
There were some on campus that were worried because they don’t follow the school’s anti-discrimination policies. The administration’s response to faculty concern has been, “Fuck yeah we’re getting a Chik-Fil-A. Maybe they hate the gays but have you tried their chicken?”
The faculty senate passed a resolution stating that any business that comes onto campus has to adhere to our nondiscrimination policy, which like most of the things that come from the faculty the administration will happily ignore.
No, this is a misunderstanding: yes the lease was for an initial 6 months, but the decision not to extend it was taken eight days after launch of the restaurant (I think I wrongly said 10 days earlier).
People are being very coy about exactly why “the right thing to do” was to immediately decide that there would be no lease extension when it fell due. Evidently there were protests - I took the inference to be that this was enough to persuade the shopping centre management to make the announcement; but they haven’t made this clear themselves.
I haven’t gone in because it’s Taco Freaking Bell but I suspect it’s much the same (in fact, menu here). The Chipotle* model (which is really the Subway model but with assembly-line burritos instead of assembly-line sandwiches) is fairly popular, at least in London, but then the end product is a lot better than TB’s fare.
*Although I would recommend Chilango over Chipotle by a long way. Their hot sauces are quite flavourful.
