Grand Opening of Danbury's First Chick-fil-A Will Award Year Supply of Meals to First 100 in Line

Danbury’s First Chick-fil-A Restaurant Opening Nov. 6 Inside Danbury Fair Mall:

Grand Opening Will Award Year Supply of Chick-fil-A Meals to First 100 in Line

New Danbury Location Creates 35 New Jobs; One of Two New Chick-fil-A Restaurants Opening In Connecticut on Same Day

                Danbury’s first Chick-fil-A^® restaurant will open Nov. 6 inside Danbury Fair Mall, bringing 35 new jobs and the chance for 100 adults in line on grand opening morning to win free Chick-fil-A meals for a year.

                After 11 years and more than $21.5 million in free food given away, Chick-fil-A’s “First 100” celebration continues to be the chain’s signature grand opening event, which transforms the restaurant parking lot into a 24-hour community friendly party as the crowd awaits the opening.

The new Danbury restaurant located at the food court inside the Danbury Far Mall at 7 Backus Avenue will host the next First 100 event that will award a total of $30,000 in free food. A digital offer card loaded with a one-year supply of free Chick-fil-A^® Meals will be given to each of the first 100 eligible adults, ages 18 and older with identification, in line when the restaurant opens about 9 a.m. on Thursday, Nov. 6. The line for the promotion will officially open a 9 a.m. on Wednesday,

Nov. 5, at a Chick-fil-A tent located in the mall’s overflow parking near the mail entrance. If more than 100 people are onsite when the line officially opens at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 5, then all 100 spots will be determined by a drawing held that morning with those selected needing to camp out for 24 hours to secure their spot. Participants are not allowed to bring tents. Additional details and rules are available online at www.chick-fil-a.com/locations/openings.

The new Danbury Fair Mall Chick-fil-A restaurant is the one of four Connecticut locations the chain is opening within a six-month period as it expands into the state. The first Connecticut Chick-fil-A restaurant opened Oct. 9 in nearby Brookfield. Along with the Danbury Fair Mall restaurant, a stand-alone restaurant is opening at 1098 N. Colony Road in Wallingford on Nov. 6. A stand-alone restaurant is slated for Enfield in early 2015. The new locations are part of a New England expansion bringing the first stand-alone Chick-fil-A restaurants to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Connecticut this year.

The opening of Danbury Fair Mall’s Chick-fil-A restaurant will create 35 new jobs. The restaurant will be open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. offering a limited breakfast menu including Chick-fil-A’s Chick-n-Minis, multigrain oatmeal, yogurt parfaits and fresh fruit cups until 10:30 a.m. The chain’s full lunch/dinner menu will be available at the Danbury Fair Mall location. Like all Chick-fil-A restaurants, it will be closed on Sunday.

Rich Beattie has been selected as Owner/Operator of the new Danbury Fair Mall Chick-fil-A restaurant. Beattie, who grew up in northern New Jersey, got his first taste of Chick-fil-A signature taste and service while studying at Eastern University near Philadelphia, Pa. He and his roommates went so frequently they joked that someday one should own a location. After graduating, Beattie worked in construction management where he fell in love with small business and realized his future was in the food and hospitality industry. He went to work with a Chick-fil-A owner/operator in Pennsylvania helping him grow his business. Beattie also began working Chick-fil-A’s corporate office focusing on grand openings and training and operations standards.

 The chance to open the Chick-fil-A restaurant inside Danbury Fair Mall and be part of the chain’s New England expansion gave Beattie the opportunity he and his family had been seeking. Beattie, his wife, Kari, and their three children are thrilled to be opening Danbury’s first Chick-fil-A restaurant.

 “Personalized customer service and freshly prepared food have been the hallmarks of Chick-fil-A since the day founder

S. Truett Cathy opened his first restaurant,” said Beattie. “My team members and I couldn’t be more honored and excited to continue that legacy with our customers in Danbury and throughout Connecticut.”

Perfecting a recipe his mother used in her Atlanta boarding house, Cathy first served his boneless breast-of-chicken sandwich, pressured cooked and served on a buttered bun with two crucial pickles, at his Dwarf Grill restaurant, which opened in 1946 in Hapeville, Ga. It was the signature menu item when the first Chick-fil-A restaurant opened in 1967 inside an Atlanta mall. Though joined by many other menu options over the years, the Chick-fil-A sandwich remains the centerpiece of the menu as the chain has grown to more than 1,873 restaurants in 41 states and Washington D.C.

The new Chick-fil-A inside Danbury Fair Mall is one of 93 new restaurants the chain plans to open across the country in 2014, creating more than 7,400 new jobs. Chick-fil-A continued to grow in 2013, increasing the number of new restaurants initially planned for the year and reporting record-setting annual sales of more than $5 billion, the 47^th consecutive year of sales growth since the company began in 1967.

For more information on the new Danbury Fair Mall Chick-fil-A restaurant, visit us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CFAdanbury.