The Practical Reason All Chick-Fil-A Restaurants Look The Same

If you're a regular Chick-fil-A customer, you may have noticed something unique about the popular fast-food restaurant's newer locations. Or rather, something not so unique! If it seems like certain franchises look essentially identical, you're correct. Since 2020, the company has been building (and rebuilding) locations with an innovative, modular design.

The company began using this modular set-up in 2020, with the first location built in this way opening in Roswell, Georgia, that fall. While it might sound complicated, it's a straightforward concept: Build large portions of the building off-site and put them together at the restaurant location. This changes the main process of putting up the restaurant from construction to assembly, reducing the risk of big delays or issues with rain, snow, or other bad weather. It also eliminates many potential slowdowns related to labor and scheduling. 

Chick-fil-A pointed out a few reasons for switching to modular restaurant construction. For one, the process is much faster — by up to 10 weeks. That's particularly important for restaurant rebuilds because it minimizes the time the location is closed and employees aren't able to work. It also ensures consistency and high quality of all parts, as the finer work is done in a central location by workers familiar with the process, allowing any flaws or issues to be detected and fixed long before the pieces arrive at the restaurant site. 

Also, Chick-fil-A says the alternative process is better for the environment, explaining that it's reduced construction waste by half with the new methods.

The quick-and-easy construction technique has helped Chick-fil-A expand from approximately 2,300 stores in early 2020 to 2,600 locations in nearly every U.S. state, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and Canada. This steady growth (even during a pandemic and other economic challenges) is fueled by tens of thousands of franchise operator applications per year, only a fraction of which are approved by Chick-fil-A headquarters.

Aside from practical construction considerations, you also can't forget the benefits of potential customers being able to instantly recognize a Chick-fil-A location when on the go as well as the comfort factor for guests who immediately feel "at home," even if they've never been to a particular franchise. Still, even if the stores look very similar, that doesn't mean you need to make the same mistakes everyone makes when ordering food at Chick-fil-A.