History of Chick-fil-A

Before “Chick-fil-A”

Samuel Truett Cathy took America’s restaurant scene by storm since World War II, transforming his Chick-fil-A business from a restaurant so small which he initially called it the Dwarf Grill.

Dwarf House

Opened in Hapeville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, in 1946, Cathy and his brother Ben opened the Dwarf Grill. They built it near a Ford auto plant with the idea of bringing in its hungry employees and it worked. The brothers noticed that some of their customers were taking their rolls and chicken meat to turn them into sandwiches. This gave them the idea for the Chick-fil-A concept. Ben Cathy and another brother of S. Truett were killed in a tragic plane crash. Truett Cathy continued to run the restaurant, which we renamed the Dwarf House.

New Beginnings

S. Truett Cathy started a Chick-fil-A chain in 1967 in the Greenbriar Mall in southwestern Atlanta. Chick-fil-A franchises are closed on Sundays. Cathy opened his first restaurant on a Tuesday, and he found that by Sunday he was “just worn out.” He noted that many of his customers, as well as himself, preferred to observe the Christian Sabbath and not go out to eat on Sunday. He has kept his restaurants closed on Sundays ever since.

Progression

• During the 1970s through the early 1980s, the chain expanded by opening new locations in suburban malls’ food courts.
• The first freestanding location was opened on April 16, 1986, on North Druid Hills Road in Atlanta, Georgia, and the company began to focus more on this stand-alone type restaurant rather than on the food court type.

“Eat Mor Chikin”

The company has produced television commercials, print ads, and highway billboards since 1994. These advertisements consisted of cows holding up signs that say, “EAT MOR CHICKIN”, suggesting that cows might have trouble spelling. This campaign was an effort to get people away from burger chains, which increased the fictional cows’ self-preservation.