Opening of Chick-fil-A in Leeds City Centre

American fast food chain Chick-fil-A recently opened its first restaurant in Leeds on Thursday October 23rd.

Well known for its iconic Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwich, the chain brings a new kind of fast-food experience to Leeds. It’s all about freshly-prepared food, with their boneless chicken breasts being hand-breaded throughout the day, avoiding frozen and pre-packaged food.

Additionally, they offer their freshly squeezed lemonade, brewed ice tea and hand-spun milkshakes – all focused around providing quality and fresh ingredients.

The chain, founded in 1967 by the Cathy family, now has over 3000 restaurants across the globe, and before opening its store in Leeds it had a couple of motorway service station locations in the UK. 

The chain has tried to break into the UK market before, with a pop up store in Reading in 2019. However, the store shut down after 6 months following campaigns of protests and boycotts of the chain. 

The controversy around the company entering the UK market was due to comments the then-CEO made in 2012 against same sex marriage, and apparently donationed millions of dollars to several anti-LGBTQ Christian organisations.

Reports have also found that the employees have experienced homophobia in a number of their chains across the US.

The company is still run by the Cathy family, but has seemingly changed course.

They have changed the focus of their donations after appointing a head of diversity in 2020. 

With queues down the street for multiple days of its opening week, it seems this store might be off to a stronger start than its predecessors. 

Student who have visited the new branch have said,

“The new branch offers signature chicken sandwiches and freshly squeezed lemonade. It is great to see that Leeds has been picked as the first branch in the UK for such a large brand”.

However, other Students have expressed concerns about the companies anti-LGBTQ allegations,

“Despite the company claiming to have changed its course on their LGBTQ discrimination, it is hard to completely forgive and forget the company who have caused such controversy and upset.”