I'll never understand the literal lines around the block for fucking Bigot-Chicken.
I mean, if you don't mind/know about the bigotry, it's pretty fuckin good chicken. And their waffle fries are good too. Haven't eaten there in years and I do miss the food. But it's still a hard no for me.
It's isn't good chicken though. It's not 2003. Every fast food place has better chicken now.
I found the food greasy and unsettling, but I live in a large city full of better options. I guess I can get why people in a small town may miss it.
can't speak for the bigots, but as a non-bigot who buys it for my kids a couple times a year -
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. i say this as someone who doesn't shop at amazon or wally world, but it's really difficult to avoid every single brand/company with an asshole owner/ceo. additionally, my impression is they are one of the better employers in the area for people who just need a job and lack skills/ability to do something else.
Ethics are what you make of them. If it doesn't bother you that this organization directly gives profits to organizations that dehumanize lgbtq+ people, then keep offering them your business.
In our society our purchasing decisions can absolutely have moral ramifications, and it's not about the impact we may or may not have. Dan Cathy stood up 11 years ago and said the following on behalf of his restaurant in direct defense of giving money to anti-lgbtq+ groups, including those practicing conversion therapy:
"we're inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about."
To clarify further, Dan Cathy himself turned his chain into a symbolic beacon of religious zealotry and biggotry. It's a symbol to many conservatives and bigots all across this nation. It doesn't have to be that symbol to you, but to those of us paying attention, we may use a measure of contempt and caution when measuring up those who eat there.
I find the entire concept of being unable to try to be moral with our purchases positively dripping with intellectual dishonesty. Life isn't about being 100% moral, it's about doing our best with what we have. If we can't avoid a greasy fast food chain for being a symbol of hate, then how will we ever foster true change in this broken world?
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
This applies more for corporations that own unavoidable infrastructure than restaurants with ample alternatives. The former would cost you a lot to forego and interfere with more effective praxis, while the latter costs nothing to support gay rights.
there is no ethical conumption under capitalism
I get this and understand to the point that I dont judge people too hard for just getting it out of convenience.
That said I feel like it's an easy mark to boycott. At it's best it's just fast food chicken and the creators have an active hand in anti lgbt and weird religious fundamentalist stuff.
You don't have to eat fast food AT ALL. You would be more healthy and you would avoid funding awful people.
my impression is they are one of the better employers in the area for people who just need a job and lack skills/ability to do something else.
We, like you, avoid what companies we can, CFA included, but this is often overlooked. The individual locations (franchises) are not equal to the anti-lgbtq+ corporate leaders and many of the ones here (Midwest) seem at the local level to better align with the community they serve.
I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a few years: Christian Chicken Offset Charity. It would be an app that would notify you “You appear to be patronizng a bigoted establishment, do you wish to make a $1 donation to Charity X to offset?”
Could work for Hobby Lobby, In ‘n Out, etc, too.
This isn't how reality works. Offset is basically babble. What actually happens is company A does something actually harmful like poison the environment, pave some wetlands, burn down the forest and plant corn and then your offset goes to pay people with masters degrees to THINK about what they might do about assholes ruining the world.
On net assholes with masters degrees have houses in the burbs and the fucking damage is still done. If you want to offset harm you actually have to decrease harm not pretend to be offsetting it.
It's because assholes like the controversy and want to support the company. There was a time, long ago, when CFA legitimately had the only good fast food chicken, but those days are long gone. CFA is mid tier at best, so the only reason people would get in line to eat there these days is to own the libs
Man, I never missed the food even a single day since I stopped eating there around a decade ago due to the biggotry. It was always really greasy, and it made me feel like shit a half an hour after eating it.
$0.02: I can't prove it, but I think it comes down to the line itself being a mode of advertisement. You wouldn't want to eat somewhere unpopular, and a hyper efficient drive-through would give that appearance. To blunt the impact of a deliberately slower drive-through, they put people out front* to greet customers so they don't feel ignored in line. This in itself is something other chains don't do and, instead, have to crush the drive-through line fast, just to keep everyone's blood pressure in check. It's better "customer service", but as OP illustrates, places your staff out in the elements.
Meanwhile the food is bland and factory-assembly-line consistent, with toppings that range from bland to sweet and bland. Perfect for kids and adults that already have enough excitement in their lives. Are powdermilk biscuits on the menu yet?
(* if this is a corporate-mandated thing, it's freaking brilliant. A manager can't realistically pull one of the greeters to handle a kitchen disaster in the moment, since they're outside. So, service in this regard is hard for management to screw up.)
Especially now that McDonald's has the same exact thing. They even stole the bag. And are open on Sundays.
My go-to is rofo though.
Fr it's not even that good. People lost their shit about it so I tried it and I was super underwhelmed. So many better options out there.
It's cause.most people have no clue about that and ultimately don't care. They aren't engaged and aren't seeking to be.
It's fast, clean and decent enough to Garner a lot of customers.
This is one of the reasons I don't get food from them or in-N-out. It may be illogical, but they tend to get a plot in a shopping center and take over a huge portion of the parking lot, pushing out customers from other stores in the shopping center. I couldn't even get into the driveway to go to the grocery store one time because they were mis-managing the queue and had to go across town to the other store.
There's a whole ass freeway exit I purposefully avoid for the same reasons. It's a nightmare getting on and off because of a fucking chicken restaurant.
This may be conjecture, but I think that the reason that they're so busy is because people think that if they don't eat there then they won't get into heaven.
The food does taste good, and it's reasonably healthy for fast food, additionally they pay and typically treat their employees well.
All the people here talking about boycotting chik-fil-a, yet the "boycott" has been going on for almost five years now and it made literally no difference.
They're way more likely to be affected by the right-wing boycott due to the company having a VP of DEI than a bunch of people that never ate there in the first place "boycotting" because of bigotry.
Because it tastes really good. What's not to understand?
I don't eat chick-fil-A because of reasons but damn when I did they knew how to move lines fast. Also, the food is okay but it isn't as good as people make it out to me.
I tried it a few times when it came to my area after hearing people rave for years, and I feel the same. It's good, but that's it. On par with KFC.
Popeye's is way better in my opinion. It's also cheaper, and the staff tend to be pretty entertaining in an unintentional and chaotic way. It's the only fast food restaurant where employees are consistently very honest. Like, if they don't have red beans because somebody fucked them up, I have been told exactly that.
“You get what you get. NEXT!”
Ngl the raw “you think I give a fuck about this job?” attitude their employees give off is super refreshing compared to the saccharine, focus tested to death, mandatory prompts that pass as conversation at Chic-Fila
I like the customer service and overall quality of the place, I've never seen a bad store. I'm not crazy about their chicken (Popeyes is better imo), it's not the best but you'll never roll the dice on whether you got what you ordered or if there is a problem. Also, from what I hear, they pay very competitively and take care of their employees (could be wrong).
I haven't deliberately eaten there in years (occasionally I'll have it if it's catered or if everyone else wants to go), because they have really terrible politics and support things I disagree with.
Also, the place has a vibe I hate, like preppy kids mixed with a church function. It just feels fake, the smiles, the "my pleasure", etc. it feels so fake it's unsettling to me. I like Popeyes because while I have to check my order to make sure it's ok, the person behind the counter is a normal person not a plastic cutout.
I'd put it on par with Wendy's. Above KFC, but I still wouldn't go out of my way for it. But I've also only had it at catered work functions when it wasn't fresh, so I am a little biased. And fuck them, I don't give bigot chicken my money, so I guess I'll never know what it tastes like fresh.
At it's best it's fast food chicken. I'll never understand the hubub.
Its closed on sundays(which is fun because they get contracts to operate in airports and throughway rest stops), and the owners have that whole anti gay thing going on.
its a Christian thang
It's too pricey for me even if it existed in my area, I loved the food but it was overcharged
The nearest Chick-fil-A to me is always super busy with cars going around the block. I have never seen them take orders from the cars that are waiting in line like this.
bigot chicken
GONK GONK
GONG
Fuuuuuccccck Chikfila
You can see it in the photo, but it's always bothered me how my local chic fil a built a nice covered spot for their workers to work with heaters and fans for temperature control and then I basically never see the workers actually work there. They all seem to work at the very beginning of the line, never patient enough to just let cars move up to them.
Why build it that way if you never use it (or aren't allowed to)??
They go down the line during a rush to give the kitchen more time to prep orders.
And it works. The chikfila by my work I can get in and out of in 5-10 minutes regardless of how busy they are (barring the time when some chose blocks the drive thru exit and the manager has to come out and direct traffic to get the line moving). Compared to BK or McDonald's who take 20+ minutes if there's more than like 4 people in front of you. God help you if you try to go inside and theres an old person trying to order on the touch screen things.
That being said I don't go to child fil a when the weather is shitty because of the workers being out in it.
And Popeye's sandwiches are like double the size of Chik-Fil-A
And Popeye's spicy actually is.
Wendy’s has the best spicy chicken sandwich.
People like to compare them, but they have such a different flavor when you order them plain like I do. The Popeyes ones are pickle-brined, so they have a faint taste of pickles with every bite. I can't stand the flavor personally.
And the entertainment of seeing other people fight is better than anything chic fil a has to offer
I don't know what those are, but I love standing in the rain and I hate getting wet. So that just looks incredibly nice
I used to work at chick-fil-a. Those things sucked. They were hot and smelled of body oder. It was hard to do anything in them.
I can’t imagine them washing that thing regularly
The in-person order taking is a much worse experience for the customer. Let me look at the damn menu board. It should not take any more time to prepare a meal than it takes for a car to progress from the order board to the window. I don’t see how them getting the order earlier (presumably the purpose of this) is helping in any way.
If you want chick fil a and value your time, the in store pickup is a much more efficient.
In-store pickup, lol. The places by me are always so busy that there's nowhere to park.
Huh? They have staged ordering and pickup. So the pickup is not a bottleneck.
Chick-fil-A minions*
You imagine farting in one of those things
Only source of heat.
Fairly certain I don't
As a non American: What are these people doing? Only time I've seen fast food personal outside around here is to empty the bins and pick up trash from the parking lot. Otherwise they are inside.
They take the orders on iPads 80% instead of having you drive up to the speaker.
I think they do this to keep the kitchen constantly moving instead of waiting for an order to get finished. Also a personal touch.
Taking drive through orders
WTF, really? People around here order using a touchscreen, same as the kiosks inside. If you want you can press a button and talk to someone inside to ask a question. But the UI on the kiosks is pretty good, ordering is easy and it includes all the info you could ever want. I've never had a reason to press the assistance button, but I like it's there.
Sending actual people to stand in the rain for such a simple task seems very weird to me.
The early days of drive in was waiting in your car in the parking lot and wait for a server to come out to you to take your order. Then they return to your car with the food for you to eat in your car in the parking lot. They often had trays that hooked onto your window or trays that would sit in your lap to eat from. This food was diner style food and wasn't quick to make like fast food today is.
These styles of restaurants fell out of style when cheap and quick fast food came along. This combined with Americans are usually only interested in the latest things or styles, many of these old style restaurants went under and disappeared into history. The Founder movie covers some of this when the McDonald's brothers came along.
The ones that didn't die like A&W adopted the eat inside model with a drive thru window for pickup abandoning the older model where their waitresses would roller skate out to your car to take your order and deliver food.
Then there are newer chains like Sonic in the US that have this old style pull up parking and a drive thru with outside seating. This is more of a nostalgia play for consumers and it worked as it was a trip to something that wasn't around anymore so it was new again.
I assume this Chick Fil place is doing something similar in this photo or they are just delivering food during the pandemic to people that preordered ahead of time in the rain.
Chick-fil-A has a more or less normal drive through. You drive your car through and get the food at a standard pickup window. The people outside are taking orders on ipads, but not delivering food.
I’ve never actually “been” to Chick-Fil-A, not even when I didn’t know about their shitty beliefs. Popeyes was always more convenient and tastes great. Now that I know, I actively avoid CFA.
I have tasted it when other people bring it in for work or something, and I still don’t get the hype. It’s just ok and definitely not worth waiting in a long line for when there are so many other options.
Edit: I don’t know if these even exist anymore, but some Popeyes have/had a buffet. If you find one of these glorious chicken establishment unicorns, please take advantage of it. You won’t regret it.
The reason those guys are out there is to make sure there aren't long lines. I hate the way it is set up but I have to give them credit that they can get people through faster than any other fast food joint around. They make McDonald's look extremely slow at times.
I agree, even when the line is wrapped around the building the wait rarely is ever that long.
And I know this is just pissing into the wind in this community, but CFA is amazing in my community. Yes, Popeyes sandwich is better, but the service level is next level at CFA. They pay well, treat their employees great (see photo), and they give back to the community. When the local owners were renovating their stores they went out seeking volunteer opportunities for their employees, them paid their employees for the time they spent volunteering. Plus the employees are just nice... compare that to the Popeyes employees who obviously hate being at work, are understaffed, and underpaid.
Yes, CFA has issues at the corporate level but on the local level it is an amazing employer and member of the community.
Newer shake shacks do the same thing with the double drive through and roving CSAs, but im pretty sure they just cloned chick-fil-a's process.
Yeah, that’s fair.
I've read that the chicken Aldi sells in a red bag cooked in an air fryer is on par with CHICK-FIL-A. 🤷♂️
We got those, or some similar “it’s like chick-fil-a” chicken from there. I did not like it because it tastes like pickles.
I REALLY dislike the taste of pickles for some reason. I’ve seen people speculate that chick-fil-a brines their chicken in pickle juice, but either way if I get a sandwich of theirs without pickles, I don’t taste anything like I do with the store chicken. That goes for both the normal and the spicy sandwich.
Rain hoods and bigotry.
Popeye's chicken sandwiches are awesome and no one has to stand in the rain.
You should visit the Popeye's in Detroit. You place your order, sometimes you get a bag full of food you didn't order and appreciate the generosity. Other times the staff takes a 30min weed break before they get to serving you. It's a special place.
I think that's just Popeyes, but I live in Memphis. A lot of times they just holler that they're out of chicken on the drive through speaker lol
It's the little things that make it special.
Ah yes, the Popeye's / Waffle House hybrid model.
Take one chicken breast, sliced about an inch thick and then pounded to half that. Marinate the pieces in pickle brine for about a day, then dry, bread, and fry them.
Just as good as Chik fil a and you don’t have to even leave the house. And one chicken breast can make 5-6 patties
I'm pretty sure there chicken is not actually pickle brined. I can't stand the taste of pickles and I order every sandwich without them. I can't eat the Popeyes chicken sandwich because I can still taste the pickles they were brined with, but I don't get a hint of pickles from chickfila's sandwiches.
For breading I do 1 cup flour, ½ cup cornstarch, 1 tsp baking soda, seasonings. For my wetter I use 1 egg white, 1 tsp water, whisked. Bread (paper bag is what I shake it in), then dip in wetter, then bread again, and fry asap. The water in the wetter activates the baking soda slowly (faster in the fryer), but you want to fry it before it totally reacts (this is what introduces the bubbles in the batter that gives the flour mix its volume).
I created this starting at a popeyes copycat recipe and expanded upon it, to create a solid generic that I work off of. For seasonings, I'll simply use a Cajun seasoning mix and give it a few shakes.
RIP Popeyes Po'Boy.
Far better than CFA’s. I find Popeye’s chicken sandwich to have far better crisp breading and better meat. CFA can get more orders out than Popeye’s in the same amount of time but quality is better than quantity
Weird, but better than standing in the rain I guess 🤷♀️
What even do they need to be outside for? It's a drive-through: aside from the arglbarglarglbarglarglbarglarglbargl of some monster diesel Dodge Ram killing the microphone it's generally an "everyone is in a vehicle or building already" job.
There’s a couple of places I’ve seen that do this. Basically it just streamlines the process so once you get to the window they just have your food ready vs waiting 10 min for the granny in front of you to order then wait for her to get her food. I’m sure some industrial engineer can come in here and explain it better though.
Yeah, I’ve no idea but I try not to think too much about north American infrastructure and business structure, many of it seems illogical to me.
Lemmy is absolutely aghast at the idea of being outside.
It's like the little personal transport vehicle in Satisfactory; but Flintstones style!
Human labour at its finest.
Give them some Mickey mouse boots and they could stay outside for the entire shift!
Doing God’s work.
Minion lookin ass
Lmao
Beef-Fil-A's
I see huts with chicken legs like this: https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/fairy-landscape-hut-on-chicken-legs-vector-21808909. I guess it is fitting for Chick-Fil-A.
Owned by religious nutbags. Don't eat here.
These poor people having to wait in the rain so boomers can order chicken sandwiches. It is called an app people.
