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.

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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

  1. ^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2023/09/14/us-fast-food-chain-chick-fil-a-plots-uk-return (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
  2. ^ 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)
  3. ^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/11/US-chain-Chick-fil-A-lands-in-Reading (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
  4. ^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/18/Chick-fil-A-to-close-debut-UK-restaurant-after-LGBT-backlash (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
  5. ^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2019/10/28/Chick-fil-A-quietly-opens-second-UK-restaurant-in-Scottish-highlands (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
  6. ^ https://www.restaurantonline.co.uk/Article/2020/01/22/Chick-fil-A-closes-sole-Scottish-restaurant (www.restaurantonline.co.uk)
  7. ^ https://www.ft.com/content/295033d3-7b4e-408c-b831-0d456b152bef (www.ft.com)