Chick-fil-A to return to UK with double opening in Northern Ireland

The Atlanta-based fried chicken chain, which runs more than 2,800 restaurants across the US, has entered into a new licensing partnership with motorway service areas operator Applegreen.

The first of the new Chick-fil-A sites will open at Applegreen's Lisburn South motorway service area on the M1 later this month.

This will be followed by the second location at Applegreen Templepatrick on the M2 in March.

Applegreen already has a partnership with Chick-fil-A in the US where it operates 14 of its restaurants at its US-based motorway service area.

"We are delighted to be bringing Chick-l-A to Northern Ireland with this new partnership agreement," says Caroline Cherington, regional operations director for Applegreen, Northern Ireland.

"Having successfully operated Chick-l-A restaurants in the United States for several years, we know how much customers love their high-quality food, and we're excited to introduce this brand to a new audience."

Chick-fil-A announced back in 2023 [1] that it was planning to relaunch in the UK and last year revealed it was targeting sites in London, Leeds, Liverpool and Belfast [2] under plans to open five restaurants across 2025 and 2026.

Its return to UK shores comes more than five years after it tried and failed to get a foothold in the market.

Back in 2019 Chick-fil-A opened a site within Reading's Oracle shopping centre [3] that was marked for closure little more than a week later [4].

The chicken chain's reported historic donations to anti-LGBT+ organisations led gay rights charity Reading Pride to call for a boycott of the restaurant, and the Oracle later announced it was not planning to extend the chain's lease beyond its six-month pilot period.

It subsequently launched a site at the Macdonald Aviemore Hotel in the Scottish Highlands [5], but that site closed too within a few months [6].

Chick-fil-A, which is led by the founder's grandson Andrew Cathy, has in recent years overhauled its philanthropic policy to focus on education, homelessness and hunger.

Speaking last year, Joanna Symonds, Chick-fil-A's head of UK operations, said: "From our earliest days, we've worked to positively influence the places we call home and this will be the same for our stores in the UK."

Chick-fil-A does not open on Sundays in the US because of religious reasons and, according to previous reports in the FT [7], the same policy will apply in the UK.

References

^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2023/09/14/us-fast-food-chain-chick-fil-a-plots-uk-return (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2024/09/25/US-fast-food-chain-Chick-fil-A-targets-sites-in-London-Leeds-Liverpool-and-Belfast/ (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/11/US-chain-Chick-fil-A-lands-in-Reading (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/18/Chick-fil-A-to-close-debut-UK-restaurant-after-LGBT-backlash (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/28/Chick-fil-A-quietly-opens-second-UK-restaurant-in-Scottish-highlands (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2020/01/22/Chick-fil-A-closes-sole-Scottish-restaurant (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
^ https://www.ft.com/content/295033d3-7b4e-408c-b831-0d456b152bef (www.ft.com)