MORE THAN JUST CHICKEN

"We should be about more than just selling chicken. We should be part of our customers' lives and the communities in which we serve."

S. Truett Cathy

1921-2014

When I was in seminary back in the 1980’s I attended chapel service on campus almost every week. The speaker in chapel one day was Mr. Truett Cathy, the founder and owner of Chick fil-A restaurants. Mr. Cathy was a devout Christian man, and his faith informed the way he did business and the way he treated his customers and his employees. Since 1964, the organization has been a leader in innovation in food preparation, restaurant design, human resources, and things like “Upstream Ordering” and “Upcycling.”   

 I was instantly taken with Mr. Cathy’s sense of focus, his business philosophy, his ideas about treatment of fast food staff, and the ways he lived out his faith in his business. From the beginning, for example, Chick fil-A stores were always closed on Sundays, because “Our founder, Truett Cathy, made the decision to close on Sundays in 1946 when he opened his first restaurant in Hapeville, Georgia. Having worked seven days a week in restaurants open 24 hours, Truett saw the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest and worship if they choose - a practice we uphold today.” This was not just a statement of his faith but about his commitment to his employees. This was revolutionary since in the beginning all the Chick fil-A stores were located in shopping malls where the busiest days were on the weekends. His friends said he was crazy and that he would go broke being closed on Sundays.

The shopping mall was the center of urban retail through the 70’s and 80’s, and that was where all the stores were located. But the retail landscape changed; the immediate context changed; the business environment changed; and Chick fil-A was smart enough to change with it (let this be a lesson for the Church). They began to open their first free-standing stores which were still strategically located to serve the shop-and-eat market and other places where quality fast food is in demand. Today you can find Chick fil-A in hospital cafeterias, airports, college campuses, and urban retail centers throughout the USA. As far as I know, no one in corporate headquarters complained that “We’ve never done it that way before.” They never forgot what business they were in or why they existed.

About fifteen years after I met Truett Cathy in seminary, my daughter Liz got her first job working for Chick fil-A in Conway, Arkansas. She would remain with the organization for six years, all the way through high school and college. When she interviewed for the job, she was told that every employee learns the company’s mission: “We are not here to serve chicken, but to serve people.” If you did not understand this, you did not need to work for Chick fil-A. I was glad she got the opportunity to work for a company with this kind of business philosophy.

As long as Truett Cathy was alive, he never allowed Chick fil-A managers and staff to forget why the organization exists and why they do what they do. Once his son Dan took his eye off the ball and regrettably got involved in one of the culture wars of the day, but he learned his lesson and returned to the core mission and purpose of the organization.  The Church can profit by his example.

                                                                        Yours in Christ,

                                                                        Dr. Bill <)))’>