I mean, if you don't mind/know about the bigotry, it's pretty fuckin good chicken. And their waffle fries are good too. Haven't eaten there in years and I do miss the food. But it's still a hard no for me.
I've only been to CFA a few times, but even with lines wrapped around the building I don't think I've ever waited longer than 10 minutes. Burger King is regularly that long of a wait and I was actually stuck waiting 20 minutes at McDonald's last week (they asked me to pull up and pretty sure they forgot about me.) I try to plan ahead and not rely so much on fast food, but as much time as I spend in my car driving for work, I'm usually stopping somewhere 1-2x a week.
I've never waited more than 16ish min for food, and that is an extremely long wait for them. It is always super fast, so idk where you are pulling this 1 hour long wait time stuff from unless you are talking about their opening weekends for new ones.
Idk what the hell everyone else is talking about. Their chicken has always been great. When i get chicken from other fast food places its always hit or miss, and even on their best day, it's as good as chick fil a on one of their average days. Hell, I've never had a dry or overcooked or small portion of chicken from them, and they always pay their workers well.
can't speak for the bigots, but as a non-bigot who buys it for my kids a couple times a year -
there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. i say this as someone who doesn't shop at amazon or wally world, but it's really difficult to avoid every single brand/company with an asshole owner/ceo. additionally, my impression is they are one of the better employers in the area for people who just need a job and lack skills/ability to do something else.
This is exactly what people love using this argument for... It's a toxic concept that if we can't make a big enough impact, we shouldn't even try.
I think one could correctly argue that this is one of the major things wrong with the world today. If we aren't willing to fight injustice, how can we expect anything less from the world around us going forward?
In this case "fighting injustice" just means buying greasy chicken from the place next door. It's such a pathetically easy thing to do. Better yet, go buy some discount raw chicken and make something cheaper, healthier, and better tasting at home.
In this case “fighting injustice” just means buying greasy chicken from the place next door. It’s such a pathetically easy thing to do. Better yet, go buy some discount raw chicken and make something cheaper, healthier, and better tasting at home.
It's kind of proportional to the amount of impact people are making. Not only is the whole "ethical consumption" thing kind of like, oh, yeah, you're fucked buying anything from anywhere, and working anywhere, because it's a tangled web, but more than that, I think that most people are going to look at their individual contribution to chick-fil-a of like, ten bucks for a chicken sandwich meal, and think, hey, who gives a shit. And they're not really wrong, successful boycotts tend to need to be spurned on by some sort of external action. If chick-fil-a was unionizing, and the union said to stop shopping there in the intervening time, you'd see that eat into profit margins a lot, something to that effect.
Everyone collectively kind of understands that individual agents are too weak to do anything on their own, spontaneously. Worse than that, they've internalized it, so it's kind of turned everyone into stones that can only be shifted by larger, tectonic forces. It's like voting, everyone (or most people) are conscious of voting strategies, to not "waste their vote", and it is precisely this which takes away their power to vote. I can't really fault them for this, though. You just kind of have to face the reality, bide time in your organization in the wings, and then kind of choose your moments, when you're going to really push back at something.
Ethics are what you make of them. If it doesn't bother you that this organization directly gives profits to organizations that dehumanize lgbtq+ people, then keep offering them your business.
In our society our purchasing decisions can absolutely have moral ramifications, and it's not about the impact we may or may not have. Dan Cathy stood up 11 years ago and said the following on behalf of his restaurant in direct defense of giving money to anti-lgbtq+ groups, including those practicing conversion therapy:
"we're inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about."
To clarify further, Dan Cathy himself turned his chain into a symbolic beacon of religious zealotry and biggotry. It's a symbol to many conservatives and bigots all across this nation. It doesn't have to be that symbol to you, but to those of us paying attention, we may use a measure of contempt and caution when measuring up those who eat there.
I find the entire concept of being unable to try to be moral with our purchases positively dripping with intellectual dishonesty. Life isn't about being 100% moral, it's about doing our best with what we have. If we can't avoid a greasy fast food chain for being a symbol of hate, then how will we ever foster true change in this broken world?
my impression is they are one of the better employers in the area for people who just need a job and lack skills/ability to do something else.
We, like you, avoid what companies we can, CFA included, but this is often overlooked. The individual locations (franchises) are not equal to the anti-lgbtq+ corporate leaders and many of the ones here (Midwest) seem at the local level to better align with the community they serve.
And yet, their profits still go towards anti-lgbtq+ programs and organizations. And they still stand for biggotry, which was Dan Cathy's intention 11 years ago when he made his dish on behalf of the company.
I get this and understand to the point that I dont judge people too hard for just getting it out of convenience.
That said I feel like it's an easy mark to boycott. At it's best it's just fast food chicken and the creators have an active hand in anti lgbt and weird religious fundamentalist stuff.
This applies more for corporations that own unavoidable infrastructure than restaurants with ample alternatives. The former would cost you a lot to forego and interfere with more effective praxis, while the latter costs nothing to support gay rights.
I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a few years: Christian Chicken Offset Charity. It would be an app that would notify you “You appear to be patronizng a bigoted establishment, do you wish to make a $1 donation to Charity X to offset?”
Dan Cathy has no reason to question his biggotry. The conservatives in the United States made that clear by giving the chain record profits after he gave his speech, and after it came out that the restaurants direct profits were being donated to anti-lgbtq groups, including those that support conversation therapy.
Heres an excerpt of what he had to say:
"we're inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage. And I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about."
People like this need to shut up, or go die in a ditch somewhere so the rest of the world can see progress. The people that eat at this chain will always earn my contempt.
Oh, so the CEO uses their personal slush fund, which definitely doesn't have any connection to the business they own and make money hand-over-fist from, to make the donations to the anti-LGBT organizations instead of making the donations through the company?
That must make it all okay then!!! /s
Don't give these fucking pieces of shit any more of your fucking money, please.
Here here. People shouldn't support monsters (or their organizations) that dehumanize others for the way they were born.
Greasy chicken isn't doing anyone favors before this nasty realization, and there's simply no excuse for it after. This is the smallest sacrifice any of us can possibly make.
For anyone still eating there: You're weak, and you're supporting cruelty. Do better.
This isn't how reality works. Offset is basically babble. What actually happens is company A does something actually harmful like poison the environment, pave some wetlands, burn down the forest and plant corn and then your offset goes to pay people with masters degrees to THINK about what they might do about assholes ruining the world.
On net assholes with masters degrees have houses in the burbs and the fucking damage is still done. If you want to offset harm you actually have to decrease harm not pretend to be offsetting it.
It's because assholes like the controversy and want to support the company. There was a time, long ago, when CFA legitimately had the only good fast food chicken, but those days are long gone. CFA is mid tier at best, so the only reason people would get in line to eat there these days is to own the libs
Man, I never missed the food even a single day since I stopped eating there around a decade ago due to the biggotry. It was always really greasy, and it made me feel like shit a half an hour after eating it.
Oh no, do you cry and piss and moan every time someone validly critiques a business you just want to shop at without having to think about ethical considerations?
Someone call the fucking waahhhmbulance. So sorry that ethics are so hard for you.
Nope. I don't give a shit what their corporate overlords beliefs are. I still go get my chick-n-minis and hash browns like I do every other week because I like the way it tastes.They could be on the brink of bankruptcy from customers taking their dollars elsewhere and it won't magically change what they believe.
I'm sure you do happily drive your Tesla to the Chick-Fil-A after shopping at Hobby Lobby for Nestlé products. Safe in the knowledge that they all love you and have your best interests at heart.
$0.02: I can't prove it, but I think it comes down to the line itself being a mode of advertisement. You wouldn't want to eat somewhere unpopular, and a hyper efficient drive-through would give that appearance. To blunt the impact of a deliberately slower drive-through, they put people out front* to greet customers so they don't feel ignored in line. This in itself is something other chains don't do and, instead, have to crush the drive-through line fast, just to keep everyone's blood pressure in check. It's better "customer service", but as OP illustrates, places your staff out in the elements.
Meanwhile the food is bland and factory-assembly-line consistent, with toppings that range from bland to sweet and bland. Perfect for kids and adults that already have enough excitement in their lives. Are powdermilk biscuits on the menu yet?
(* if this is a corporate-mandated thing, it's freaking brilliant. A manager can't realistically pull one of the greeters to handle a kitchen disaster in the moment, since they're outside. So, service in this regard is hard for management to screw up.)
This may be conjecture, but I think that the reason that they're so busy is because people think that if they don't eat there then they won't get into heaven.
This is one of the reasons I don't get food from them or in-N-out. It may be illogical, but they tend to get a plot in a shopping center and take over a huge portion of the parking lot, pushing out customers from other stores in the shopping center. I couldn't even get into the driveway to go to the grocery store one time because they were mis-managing the queue and had to go across town to the other store.
There's a whole ass freeway exit I purposefully avoid for the same reasons. It's a nightmare getting on and off because of a fucking chicken restaurant.
All the people here talking about boycotting chik-fil-a, yet the "boycott" has been going on for almost five years now and it made literally no difference.
They're way more likely to be affected by the right-wing boycott due to the company having a VP of DEI than a bunch of people that never ate there in the first place "boycotting" because of bigotry.