The Chick-fil-A Chronicles Ep. 1: New Beginnings

Saturday, October 6th, 2018, was a dark day in Lexington, SC. On that day, the Chick-fil-A on Sunset Boulevard closed its doors, after 20-plus years of being the center of the Lexington fast food universe. Perhaps the Lexington Chick-fil-A was not the center of the fast food universe for everyone (crazy, I know), but it was for me. Sometimes walking in, I felt like Norm walking into Cheers: Greg!!! OK, they never yelled my name, but they did know it and greeted me enthusiastically.

My son and I spent many a Saturday lunch there after our Saturday morning long runs. We’d also rush to make the breakfast cutoff if we had a Saturday morning race. When gas prices spiked a while back, I carpooled with my mother-in-law. I liked to make her feel good by allowing her to purchase my breakfast there on Fridays. It was her idea, after all.

Soon, we made the stop on Mondays, too, just to start off the week on a good note. If she suggested we stop on Wednesdays, well, I’d do that, too. There may have been weeks where we hit all five days. Thinking back kinda looks like we spent our gas savings on Chick-fil-A. On more than one occasion, I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Chick-fil-A. Rare, but I was willing to sacrifice if my son really wanted dinner there.

 Thankfully, the Lexington closure was only temporary as Chick-fil-A built a brand new restaurant in the parking lot of the old one. The original location became the new parking lot. Kinda like they did to my high school alma mater, Riverside High in Greer, SC.

 Finally, today (or yesterday as you read this), balance, peace, and harmony were restored in Lexington as the doors opened to the new store at 6 a.m., almost two months late, thanks to our rainy winter delaying construction. I walked in about 6:55 a.m. and the owner, Micheal Tucker, soon greeted me with a “Greg! So good to see you,” complete with a handshake a lean-in bro hug. Balance. Peace. Harmony.

The Chronicles

I had an idea for a recurring blog piece a while back. The idea was simple: I’d go to a Chick-fil-A near my office once a week during lunch and write a blog post. I’d call it “The Chick-fil-A Chronicles.”

I did this once but never published the post. After re-reading the draft of that piece last week, I decided it was not recyclable. To make up for that, I planned on doing a quick post from the dining room of the new Lexington Chick-fil-A on opening day while I ate my Egg White Grill.

Unfortunately, one of the few glitches Chick-fil-A Lexington had on opening day was no Wi-Fi. This meant I couldn’t connect to work from my computer to monitor email while I wrote Episode One of the “Chronicles.” Oh well. Make that “To Go’, then. I managed to eat my EWG in the car without dripping anything on my shirt (it’s not a great car item, my only complaint) and it was one of the best I’ve had.

So, welcome back, Chick-fil-A Lexington. Here’s to creating new memories and the occasional episode of “The Chick-fil-A Chronicles.”

Thanks for reading.

Greg

 P.S. Chick-n-Minis are the best commuting food from Chick-fil-A