{"id":192,"date":"2019-06-11T12:12:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T12:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=192"},"modified":"2019-06-11T12:12:34","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T12:12:34","slug":"new-chick-fil-a-at-4625-s-florida-ave-to-open-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/06\/11\/new-chick-fil-a-at-4625-s-florida-ave-to-open-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"New Chick-fil-A at 4625 S. Florida Ave to open tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Scott Brickhouse was just 15 when he first donned a Chick-fil-A uniform in his hometown of Macon, Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s marking his 30th anniversary with the quick-serve restaurant chain with Wednesday\u2019s grand opening of his South Lakeland store \u2014 a state-of-the-art chicken palace that dwarfs its predecessor, which was razed in early February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Chick-fil-A at 4625 S. Florida Ave. opens for business at 6 a.m. Wednesday, followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. Fans of the brand are in store for some nifty innovations and enhancements designed to improve efficiencies and keep customers coming back for their sandwiches, nuggets and waffle fries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brickhouse owns a second free-standing Chick-fil-A franchise that fronts Lakeland Square mall in North Lakeland. It opened in 2012. He also is licensee consultant to a small Chick-fil-A at Southeastern University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new baby on the south side of Lakeland sports the company\u2019s newest technologies, including a conveyor belt system that delivers bagged goods to customers using the enhanced drive-through system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Customers who wish to remain in their cars also have a lane dedicated to orders made via the Chick-fil-A app. In coming months walk-in customers will be able to bypass the front counter altogether. They\u2019ll just take a seat and use the mobile app to purchase a meal, which will be delivered tableside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite a longstanding policy of remaining closed on Sunday, the Atlanta-based company remains one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the nation with an estimated $10.5 billion in U.S. sales in 2018, according to Nation\u2019s Restaurant News. Its estimated sales per unit hit $4.6 million last year, up 9.6% from $4.2 million in the preceding year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChick-fil-A is just an amazing company; it always has been but it\u2019s taken off in the last couple years,\u201d said Brickhouse, 45, who acquired his first Chick-fil-A franchise in 2000 in Pinellas County after years in management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truett Cathy founded Chick-fil-A as a mall food court concept in 1967. Today the company boasts 2,700 stores throughout the U.S., with plans to expand into Canada, according to company spokeswoman Kim Cox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wouldn\u2019t divulge sales figures for the South Lakeland store, but Brickhouse has repeatedly earned the company\u2019s coveted Symbol of Success award for outstanding sales goals. Franchisees who meet the goals are allowed to choose any Ford model to drive for an entire year, free of charge. If they meet the same goal for a second consecutive year, they get to keep the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brickhouse owns two Ford F-150 trucks and a Mustang convertible, thanks to his company\u2019s perk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His new restaurant is roomier at 5,300 square feet, big enough to seat 160 customers, or 60 more than the previous building. Brickhouse purchased an adjoining parcel of land to expand parking. His lot can handle 85 cars, more than doubling capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For customers on the run there now are four lanes for drive-through service and a separate kiosk to handle orders, freeing staff inside the main building for certain drive-through orders. Staff will roam the lanes, portions of which are under roof to block the elements, to take orders and payments during peak hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improved system should be capable of handling more than 350 customers an hour, compared to 200 customers an hour under the former system, Brickhouse said. It\u2019s an important element of the new design, as 70 percent of his customers use the drive-through system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask him about his success and Brickhouse gives credit to his employees. His new store employs a team of 135; the north side store has 125 workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy goal is to be the best quick-service restaurant in Lakeland,\u201d he said. \u201cWe serve a killer chicken sandwich (but) it sells itself. Our people are the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scott Brickhouse was just 15 when he first donned a Chick-fil-A uniform in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. He\u2019s marking his 30th anniversary with the quick-serve restaurant chain with Wednesday\u2019s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}