Double drive-thru lanes among changes at Gadsden's Chick-fil-A, which reopens Wednesday

Customers will notice some differences when Gadsden’s Chick-fil-A restaurant at 1008 S. Fourth St. reopens at noon Wednesday following a 12-plus-week renovation project.

However, the biggest impact will be on the folks who serve those diners — the team members who store officials say worked miracles by keeping up a pace that the 18-year-old building as it was could no longer really accommodate, especially with drive-thru customers.

“Our team members were doing the impossible,” store owner/operator David Wilson said. “Our store was not built to do what we did.

“They were running into each other working, and they did it with a smile on their (faces), but this update is for the team members to keep them shaded and to give them what they need to do their (jobs) properly,” Wilson said. “Chick-fil-A (emphasizes) taking care of our team members, and that in turn takes care of our guests.”

The car count through the restaurant’s drive-thru has sometimes approached 150 an hour during peak lunch times. “At times, we could’ve done more than that,” Wilson said.

Previously, there were two drive-thru lanes, but drivers had to merge into a single lane at the back of the building, where team members took orders and collected payment.

Now, there will be two defined drive-thru lanes completely around the building, with awnings covering them both at the back and the side where orders are picked up.

The restaurant’s kitchen has been fully renovated and expanded, again so “our team can do their jobs better” and get food out quicker to guests, Wilson said.

“They were literally doing the impossible in the kitchen,” he said. “I don’t know how we did it.”

The restaurant has hired close to 80 new team members because of the renovations, according to Wilson and Riley Young, the general manager. The total staff will number about 145.

Customers will notice a more spacious appearing interior, although the seating count remains 104. Accomplishing that, however, meant doing away with the playground area that kids have enjoyed for close to a generation.

“I wish I could’ve kept the seats and kept the playground,” Wilson said, “but at the end of the day the priority is the people who come in and eat.”

There’s also an expanded patio area on the right side of the building with tables, chairs and umbrellas for people who choose to dine outside.

The restaurant closed on May 4 for the renovation project, which was expected to take 14 weeks but actually was completed ahead of schedule. It provided regular Facebook updates on the progress as aficionados anxiously awaited the return of their favorite chicken. (A second Chick-fil-A location at the Gadsden Mall closed at the start of 2023.)

“We have the best customers ever,” Wilson said. “I know a lot of them were sad to see us close down, but they understood that for us to continue to serve them in the capacity we feel like they deserve, this was something we were going to have to do.”

The restaurant was showing 34% growth over last year before the temporary shutdown, Wilson said. It earned a corporate Symbol for Success Award in 2022 by showing 28% growth from the previous year.

Wilson credits that success to his team’s “level of care” as much as the food.

“We want to be the most caring Chick-fil-A, and Chick-fil-A's vision as a whole is to be the most caring company," he said. “I love that Chick-fil-A has that as a vision for their business, and we’ve adopted that. It’s something that we’ve always done, to care for people, and it’s what makes us stand out.

“We care if you have a good experience, we care if you have a bad experience and we care about making it better,” Wilson said. “If someone tells us they’ve had a good experience, we’re very critical of ourselves and look at how we could’ve made it even better.”

This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Gadsden's Chick-fil-A reopening after renovation project