Great marketing - close your NFL concession stand on Sundays

Buddy of mine who grew up just outside Atlanta spent six weeks this summer vacationing in Canada. He said it was the longest he'd gone in his life without Chick-fil-A.

 

My brother's wife manages one in suburban Cleveland. Browns future HOFer Joe Thomas and plenty of other Cleveland athletes frequent it. They love it.

 

I've been around CFA since junior high and think it's very good. Good enough for me to face the hordes of people who've lost their shit over it and are piled in there every day? No.

True story that is quintessentially CFA: Went to a Braves game once with a friend, her grandfather and some of his friends from Atlanta. One of them was the CFA ... corporate chaplain.

 

CFA is a much bigger brand now, but in the fall of 2001 in Tallahassee, my roommate from New Jersey shortly after moving in was raving about this place in the student union food court.

"You ever had Chicken Filla?"

I learned a lot about New Jersey in that moment.

 

Chick-Fil-A is good to very good fast food, but not transcendent. Like doc said, I'm not braving a 20-deep drive through line at high noon just to get a fix.

What it really has over nearly every other chain is that it is fully staffed, and the folks working there bust ass and seem genuinely happy to serve you. It's worth the extra buck or two in order to get a hot, tasty meal and not be treated like Public Enemy No. 1 by the counter help.

 

There is one in Natick/Framingham. I have a vague recollection of one opening on the North or South Shore or maybe out towards Worcester.

 

Oh yeah. I remember I worked at the House of Pets on Tharpe Street, running to the Tallahassee mall to pick up lunch. Would have been 1985-86. Great sandwich, excellent service.

I wouldn't wait through a 20-car pileup at the drive through, either; I'd go inside. You can't get sweet tea refills at the drive through anyway.

 

Had my first CFA chicken sandwich a few years ago. They're fair to midland.

No fast food chicken has come close to the Pioneer Chicken I gorged on in the '80s and '90s.

 

There's also one in Mr. Gee's neighborhood, at the Burlington Mall. Another is opening soon in Dedham.

 

Southerners: What do people most often order there?