A lead we wouldn’t soon wish to bury.
Alongside excited residents galore, The South Shore Press was on the scene at the College Plaza in Selden during the early hours of Tuesday, April 1st, to bask in the glory of a Chick-fil-A biscuit at 6:30 in the morning.
The highly-anticipated grand opening unleashed Long Island’s eleventh Chick-fil-A restaurant, and the second helmed from the original Long Island franchising owner.
Having brought the island’s inaugural free-standing Chick-fil-A to Port Jefferson a decade ago, Stan Abrahamsen told us live from the Selden store’s drive-thru that they “probably had a turnout of about 30-40 people waiting outside to come in” at the start of business.
This included a family—two little girls and their mom. “The mom was like, ‘Seriously, we’re going to go?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, that’s where we’re going.’ So they all got a bunch of free meals,” Abrahamsen fondly recalled.
Abrahamsen, who used to own McDonald’s up the road in Centereach as well, is “so thrilled to be a part of this community again.” He said it used to be their policy to issue a card that could redeem a year’s worth of free sandwiches to the first 100 customers.
“Now, after COVID, what we do is give those cards back to the community,” he added, noting that the principals of the town’s two high schools have been given 50 of those cards and can give them out as they see fit.
The first Chick-fil-A opened in Georgia in 1946. Due to the brand’s popularity and religious-based lack of a Sunday presence, drive-thru lines would especially tend to grow rather congested.
To combat such woes, the customer service-committed company implemented an orderly double drive-thru solution that many other fast food chains have come to follow.
Chick-fil-A’s Selden base is located at 949 Middle Country Road.