Windowless drive-thru coming to renovated Augusta Chick-fil-A
Sometimes when Chick-fil-A closes a window, it opens a door.
The popular fast-food chicken restaurant at 3066 Washington Road plans to reopen later this year with expanded drive-thru capacity that won’t include drive-thru windows. Workers instead will enter and exit through a full-length service door to deliver meals to customers in their vehicles.
“Some stores don’t have the physical structure to be able to do that, but where the physical structure exists, they're going to replace the window with a door,” said John Powell, the franchise owner for the Washington Road Chick-fil-A. “The door is going to enable us to walk food out and increase the customer service level vs. handing it out just through a window.”
MORE: No more chikin? Only temporarily, as Chick-fil-A on Washington Road closes for renovations
The often-outsized customer queues at most Chick-fil-A locations helped prompt the company to establish an Innovation Center in Atlanta in 2018 as a base to experiment with new service-delivery concepts. Business magazine Forbes reported in 2019 that Chick-fil-A had been testing a door-delivery system.
Other franchises are adopting the door idea, such as a Chick-fil-A that opened in suburban Portland, Maine, in October 2021.
The remodeled Augusta Chick-fil-A will have two drive-thru lanes wrapping around the building. Because of that, Powell said, doors are “going to facilitate being able to serve the lane not only closest to the door but also the lane that’s out on the other side."
The outer lane also is designed to not interfere with dine-in customers entering and exiting parking spaces, he said. The store’s new parking area will double to between 85 and 90 spaces.
Sit-down dining space at 3066 Washington Road will almost double, Powell said. There will be about 90 seats in the new dining room and 30 seats at outdoor tables shaded with umbrellas.
In late August or early September, the location will begin hiring to fill positions for a larger staff. Employees displaced by the renovations are working at other area Chick-fil-As, Powell said, but when 3066 Washington reopens, it will have a staff of between 115 and 120 workers, he said.
The anticipated opening is the "last week of October, first week of November,” Powell said.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Chick-fil-A in Augusta to get windowless drive-thru
