NEW YORK CITY: Chick-Fil-A Megastore Opens In October

During the Great Chicken Uproar of 2012, then-NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn demanded that the NYU cafeteria close its tiny walk-up Chick-Fil-A window, which was the chain’s sole outpost in the nation’s largest city. NYU declined to act. A few months ago I reported that Chick-Fil-A had signed a deal to open a megastore near Manhattan’s Herald Square. This week we get details about the opening from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Chick-fil-A will open its store in New York City’s Garment District on Oct. 3, the company said Monday. The three-story location, at the corner of West 37th Street and 6th Avenue, will be the Atlanta-based chain’s largest at 5,000 square feet. It is the company’s first Chick-fil-A’s free-standing restaurant in New York, though Chick-fil-A has operated a small store in New York University’s food court since 2004. It also will be one of Chick-fil-A’s most expensive locations. Chick-fil-A is expected to pay about $450 a square foot, industry experts said. That compares to about $20 a square foot that a fast-food chain would typically pay in a shopping center in an American suburb, which has been the company’s bread and butter.

Chick-Fil-A CEO Dan Cathy was the daily darling of anti-gay groups throughout the 2012 furor, but last year Tony Perkins labeled him a “coward” after Cathy declared that he was shutting up forever about same-sex marriage. Earlier this year the Empire State Pride Agenda warned that the company better have “learned from its mistakes” if it expects to succeed in New York City.