Chicken sandwich lovers may be saying “hip hip hooray” for the new Chick-fil-A opening up on Gateway Street in Springfield on Dec. 5, but between the anticipated traffic issues and the company’s history of ties to anti-LGBTQ organizations, the grand opening could ruffle some feathers.
Between the Chick-fil-A opening and holiday shopping, the city of Springfield is anticipating a traffic increase. Springfield Public Information Officer Elyse Ditzel recommends allowing extra travel time and an exercise of your patience around the 3450 Gateway Street location. “With the opening of Chick-fil-A scheduled this week, and several other businesses planned nearby, traffic in the Gateway area is expected to increase,” Ditzel writes in a press release.
Chick-fil-A is actually known for its effects on traffic — in 2023, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, forced a Chick-fil-A restaurant to demolish its own building for the amount of traffic it caused. When a franchise opened in Bend in January, the city also anticipated traffic snarls. Meanwhile in Portland, a Chick-fil-A replaced a former strip club where a shooting took place — the location was also home to a Hooters. Chicken strips anyone? That Chick-fil-A, the first inside Portland city limits, didn’t have a drive thru.
Locally, Springfield has supplied maps to guide diners around the blockade of chicken.
“Drivers wanting to travel northbound on Gateway Street must utilize the traffic light at the intersection of Gateway Street and Crossroads Center by using the adjacent business property drive aisles south of the site,” Ditzel writes. “For southbound travel, vehicles will exit through the driveway on Gateway Street at the Chick-fil-A entrance.”
Chick-fil-A will enter the Springfield restaurant scene at 6:30 am on Dec. 5. A location in Woodburn opens the same day.
While Chick-fil-A’s webpage states it does not discriminate against anyone based on gender, race or sexual identity, the restaurant has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ stances.
Back in 2012, Dan T. Cathy, the founder’s son, previous CEO and current chairman, told Baptist Press that the company is “guilty as charged” in its support of the “biblical definition of the family unit.”
Since then, the restaurant’s foundation has donated millions to homophobic groups, according to LGBTQ+ news source Advocate. In 2017 and 2018, Chick-fil-A gave over $3 million to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which requires its members to take a “Sexual Purity Statement.”
Then in 2022, a trans woman filed suit against a Chick-fil-A restaurant owner in Georgia for discrimination and harassment. Chick-fil-A franchise owners are considered independent business owners.
Jared Coleman, the Springfield franchise’s new independent “owner-operator,” says in the press release that he’s opening Chick-fil-A for everyone in Lane County. “We aim to create a supportive environment where Team Members can grow and pursue their dreams through the same kind of mentorship that shaped my journey.”
The new location will also be participating in the Chick-fil-A Shared Table® program, an initiative that sends extra food to local “soup kitchens,” shelters, food banks and nonprofits.
Don’t expect the traffic to go away after Dec. 5. With the average Chick-fil-A making almost $9.4 million in one year, you can anticipate a monolithic spike in traffic for a chicken sandwich.
In truth, just avoid Gateway Street for, like, four months. You can even avoid the Hobby Lobby, which fought and won in the U.S. Supreme Court to get religious exemption from providing birth control coverage to its employees.