Truett Cathy in when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. The restaurant encompassed a mere four tables and 10 stools at the counter, according to the company's website. The demands of trying to operate a hour business with alternating hour shifts at the grill took a toll on the brothers.
With a growing clientele of workers from the Ford assembly plant across the street and the nearby Atlanta airport, the Cathy's welcomed the day off on Sunday, Chick-fil-A's website explains. It didn't take long for Cathy to realize the importance of being closed on Sunday. Cathy continued: "My brother Ben and I closed our first restaurant on the first Sunday after we opened in , and my children have committed to closing our restaurants on Sundays long after I'm gone.
I believe God honors our decision and sets before us unexpected opportunities to do greater work for Him because of our loyalty. In , Cathy's children — including Dan Cathy, now the chain's CEO — pledged to uphold the company's commitment to closing on Sundays and to never take it public.
While Cathy's original reasoning was based on his Christian faith, closing on Sundays is also a brilliant business decision, experts say: It cements Chick-fil-A's reputation, benefits workers, and persuades customers to come back with a greater sense of urgency.
John Hamburger, the president of Franchise Times, described Chick-fil-A's decision to close on Sundays as a counterintuitive sales booster. Hamburger added that "being private means they can do the right thing, not the expedient Wall Street way of doing things. And for customers, knowing that they can't get Chick-fil-A on Sundays helps drive them to visit the chain when it's open. But it's a call to action every single week. For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options.
Get the Insider App. While their Sunday closures might aggravate a few customers, it allows Chick-fil-A to focus on something that's important to the company: giving back to the community.
What do you do, for instance, with an empty parking lot every Sunday? In a brilliant move, franchise owner Carmenza Moreno decided that rather than barricade her restaurant's parking lot every Sunday, she'd open it up to allow fans to park and pay. But the money doesn't pad Moreno's pocketbook — it all goes to the groups who man the lot each Sunday.
If Chick-fil-A won't even open for Super Bowl Sunday in the stadium where the actual game is being played, they must not open for any reason whatsoever, right? It turns out they have made a few exceptions.
Over the years, there have been a handful of incidents that have prompted CFA to fire up those deep-fryers, and unfortunately the circumstances behind the openings aren't great. Basically, if they're serving sandwiches on a Sunday, something pretty bad has probably happened. Those times include prepping and donating meals for the rescue teams and evacuees of North Carolina's destructive Hurricane Florence in , feeding thousands of hungry, stranded passengers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in after the power went out indefinitely, feeding first responders of the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in , and providing free meals to first responders and victims in after storms and tornados slammed Dallas.
It's no secret that the founder of Chick-fil-A, Truett Cathy, was a devout Christian , and the "corporate purpose" on the company's website even reads, "To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.
According to a Chick-fil-A press release from , "Cathy's practice of closing his restaurants on Sunday is unique to the restaurant business and a testament to his faith in God. Within the first week of business at his Dwarf Grill restaurant in Hapeville, Ga. Cathy believes that being closed on Sunday says two important things to people: One, that there must be something special about the way Chick-fil-A people view their spiritual life; and, two, that there must be something special about how Chick-fil-A feels about its people.
Cathy believes that by giving employees Sunday off as a day for family, worship, fellowship or rest, the company attracts quality people Today, though, the company seems to have walked back from this explanation a bit in favor of a slightly less Christian-centric one You won't find a lengthy explanation of Truett Cathy's Christian beliefs and how they influenced his decision to enact his "closed on Sunday" policy on Chick-fil-A's website today.
What you will find is a brief blurb explaining , "Our founder, Truett Cathy, made the decision to close on Sundays in when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. Having worked seven days a week in restaurants open 24 hours, Truett saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose — a practice we uphold today. In an accompanying video titled "Closed on Sunday," the company speaks to the importance of the day off, not just for their employees, but for their customers to: "So while we're off today, we hope you can be with your family and friends," it says.
Today we refer to it as "mindfulness. But all those years ago Cathy's intuition that closing his restaurants every Sunday would be a valuable asset for the company has proven to be a lesson in mindfulness that today's workforce badly needs. Although it's a rare perk for those working in the fast food industry, it's long been important to employees' well-being.
We all need to step out of our everyday lives and disconnect from routine, make time for ourselves and loved ones, and get out of performance mode. Could Cathy have possibly predicted that the world would be this fast-paced, and that today's employees would feel so over-worked and under-appreciated? It sure looks like he did. And according to page after page after page of job reviews , the "closed on Sunday" policy is a perk that most Chick-fil-A workers greatly value.
No, there isn't some super-secret Chick-fil-A location that's open on Sunday, but there is a way to ensure that you're prepared for a Sunday CFA craving, as long as Nuggets or Chick-N-Strips will scratch that itch
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