Liberals are going to flip out: Chick-fil-A is now the nation’s third-largest restaurant chain.
The conservative-leaning chicken sandwich outpost has long attracted liberal anger–namely for owner and CEO Dan Cathy’s stance on traditional marriage and for its conspicuous Christianity: the restaurant chain is closed on Sundays and its corporate purpose is listed as, “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.”
The restaurant’s perceived politics has led to periodic protests: a food court Chick-fil-A was rejected by New Jersey’s Rider University earlier this year, despite students listing it as the clear favorite in a campus-wide poll. And a three-story Chick-fil-A in New York’s Times Square was targeted with a failed boycott, along with an angry editorial in the New Yorker decrying Chick-fil-A’s “creepy infiltration” into the city.
But despite the left’s attempts to derail Chick-fil-A, the American people are voting with their wallets: Chick-fil-A is growing at a rapid speed.
According to Kalinowski Equity Research, Chick-fil-A sales are up 15.5%–a huge number in the competitive fast food market. Assuming those numbers hold through the end of the year, Chick-fil-A will leapfrog up the list, from seventh place to third place.
Right now, McDonald’s holds the top spot based on revenue, followed by Starbucks, Subway, Taco Bell, Burger King, and Wendy’s. Chick-fil-A, currently behind Wendy’s, is expected to leapfrog past Subway.
What’s more, Chick-fil-A has plenty of room to grow: the chain has just 2,200 locations in the United States, compared to a whopping 26,982 Subway locations, and 14,000 locations each for McDonald’s and Starbucks.
