Boycotts Unable To Rock Chick-fil-A, Now Soaring to No. 3 Fast Food Chain in US
Fast food restaurant chain Chick-fil-A has come under withering fire from the progressive left for several years now, largely due to liberal opposition to the conservative Christian beliefs espoused by the chain’s owners, particularly with regard to the sanctity of marriage.
As such, the chain has faced massive boycott efforts by angry liberal groups, up to and including efforts to ban the restaurants from college campuses and even some major metropolitan areas, like Chicago and New York City.
But in spite of the liberal boycotts — or perhaps even because of them — Chick-fil-A has rapidly grown in popularity in recent years and stands poised to assume a top-ranked position in the pantheon of American fast food restaurant chains.
The New York Post reported that, according to estimates from the Kalinowski Equity Research firm, the restaurant chain “has rocketed this year” in both popularity and sales and with new stores, growing by nearly 8 percent to a total of 2,100 franchises nationwide.
Furthermore, following estimated sales growth of 14.2 percent in 2017, Kalinowski estimated that the restaurant would achieve an almost unheard of 15 percent growth this year, or more than $10 billion in total sales. This, even as the restaurant is only open six days out of the week, as it is corporate policy to be closed on Sundays.
The analyst noted that Chick-fil-A’s incredible growth was more than double the estimated average growth rate among comparable chains of 4.5 to 7.5 percent. The explosive growth appears to stem largely from the expansion of the restaurant chain beyond their stronghold in the Southeast to open new stores across the nation’s Midwest and Northeast regions.
Business Insider reported that the huge sales growth and expansion of the restaurant chain known for tasty fried chicken sandwiches and salty waffle fries to other areas of the nation had also spurred a rather large leap up the list of the largest and most popular restaurant chains in the fast food industry.
In 2017, Chick-fil-A was ranked in the seventh spot of the largest restaurant chain list. It had been predicted by Kalinowski and other analysts at that time that the restaurant chain would eventually reach the number three position on the list, perhaps by 2020.
However, early sales reports this year prompted Kalinowski to push up his estimate for Chick-fil-A reaching the third spot to 2019 in April, only for him now to push that estimate up once again to suggest they will close out 2018 having already achieved that third spot on the list.
Should the leap from seventh to third be confirmed at the close of the year, Chick-fil-A will have jumped past other incredibly popular fast food restaurant chains like No. 6 Wendy’s, No. 5 Burger King, No. 4 Taco Bell and even No. 3 Subway. It is expected that No. 1 McDonald’s and No. 2 Starbucks will retain their respective spots … for now.
“We have long pointed out that Chick-fil-A is the restaurant competitor with which McDonald’s … should most concern itself — and by extension, investors should, too,” wrote Kalinowski in his analysis.
To be sure, given that Chick-fil-A is a privately held company that doesn’t publish all of its sales data, Kalinowski and other analysts must use estimates combined with what publicly available data there is to formulate their sales estimates.
That said, the estimated sales growth of 15.5 percent in July of this year is astounding, especially when compared against the much lower sales estimates for other comparable chains. Indeed, the closest competitor to Chick-fil-A in terms of sales growth is Domino’s pizza chain, which reportedly grew by about 12 percent in 2018.
What all of that means is that, whether in spite of or because of — or merely in coincidence with — the outraged liberal boycotts against Chick-fil-A, the restaurant chain nevertheless grew in popularity and sales at a nearly unimaginable rate.
The absolute and utter hatred unleashed against the restaurant chain, its employees and those who choose to frequent it for the tasty and affordable food appears to have backfired, garnering the exact opposite result of what the boycotters undoubtedly had expected.
It remains to be seen if the Chick-fil-A-hating progressive leftists will recognize this unbelievable result and back off of their concerted assault on the restaurant chain, or if they will foolishly redouble their efforts and continue to launch attacks … which may even succeed in pushing Chick-fil-A all the way to the top of the list, given the current trend.
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