'We regret to inform you that the fried chicken is homophobic': Eater London is bracing for 'anti-LGBTQ' Chick-fil-A's big UK debut

Sarah D | 5:09 PM on October 14, 2019

It was bad enough when Chick-fil-A opened a restaurant in Toronto. But now they’re taking their hate chicken across the pond!

Cult-followed anti-LGBTQ chicken restaurant Chick-fil-A makes full U.K. debut in Reading https://t.co/qukSKedALN pic.twitter.com/qfXA1Lfjuy

— Eater London (@eaterlondon) October 14, 2019

We regret to inform you that the fried chicken is homophobic https://t.co/8UjKTnuGkG

— James Hansen (@jameskhansen) October 14, 2019

Eater London’s James Hansen writes:

The fried chicken chain, which posted sales of $10.5 billion in 2018 and is America’s third-largest fast food chain behind McDonald’s and Subway, is rumoured to be plotting a London restaurant, but regional U.K. cities are very much within its plans. As Eater’s Ryan Sutton observed in his definitive review of Chick-fil-A, its Christian grounding lends it “community” in religious regions of the United States; its expansion to the U.K. as a brand necessarily renders it a venue, a symbol: a symbol “whose mere presence evokes the type of anger normally directed at unqualified politicians.”

…

The chain deflected from questions about further expansion, telling U.S. network CNBC that it is “focused on this location to help us understand more about consumer interest in our brand and signature menu items.” The captive audience market test-bed possibly suggests that the company is aware of likely, well-founded opposition to any stand-alone restaurant; convenience and ubiquity derived from scale is one of many ways the food media continues to justify patronising Chick-fil-A. That scale, and that community faith aren’t on tap in the U.K.: Chick-fil-A will be judged on its sandwiches and its politics.

Spoiler alert: Chick-fil-A will be judged on its sandwiches. And the waffle fries, of course.