This is a look at the Chick-Fil-A logo and the history of company. There logo design and business has gone through many changes over years.
Based in Atlanta, Chick-Fil-A is a privately and family-owned restaurant chain that S. Truett Cathy founded in 1967. Dedicated to catering to the local communities where its franchises run and renowned for its authentic chicken sandwich, the restaurant company serves freshly cooked meals all day in over 2,300 restaurants in Washington D.C, and 47 other states.
How Chick-Fil-A Got Started
Chick-Fil-A is a renowned restaurant chain that’s found all over the United States. But the first standalone location was launched in 1986, giving rise to all their new locations today. Currently, the restaurant chain boasts over 2,300 units countrywide. It has more than 24 drive-through-only locations as well. Moreover, there are restaurants in airports, universities, and hospitals through licensing agreements.
Chick-Fil-A expanded out of the Dwarf Grill (which was later known as Dwarf House—a business name that the chain still uses), a restaurant founded in Hapeville, Atlanta, in 1946 by S. Truett Cathy. This restaurant was located close to where the Ford Motor Company plant used to be. It’s said that the hotel’s staff once caught metals during shifts. The first Chick-Fil-A restaurant in a shopping mall was set up in 1967.
Chick-Fil-A claims that their present slogan, “We Never Invented the Chicken, Only the Chicken Sandwich,” was inspired by a true story. When the restaurant opened its doors in 1967, hamburgers dominated the fast-food market. Cathy is credited with inventing and making the chicken sandwich, for which the restaurant became famous.
His great chicken sandwich idea arose from the concept of finding a quick way to serve meals. Cathy found out that preparing the chicken in a pressure cooker with peanut oil saved a lot of time. The sandwich also has two pickles for the simple reason that it was the only spice Cathy had at the ready when he created the sandwich.
In October 2003, Chick-Fil-A grabbed quite a bit of headlines when it publicly announced that it was opening a new location in Goodyear, Arizona, that would offer free meals every week of the year to the first hundred customers to enter the newly-launched restaurants. The promotion was to be claimed via coupons.
Along with this offer (which was widely circulated online), the restaurant company put together a massive opening day party, complete with karaoke, klieg lights, free ice cream, and prize raffles. Chick-Fil-A now holds its “First 100” offer at the launch of every new restaurant, with folks setting camp outside for days before the opening to secure their promotion.
Since 1997, Chick-Fil-A has sponsored the Peach Bowl, a yearly college football bowl competition held in Atlanta. From the start of the 2006 season, that competition was renamed the Chick-Fil-A bowl. The restaurant chain is also a major sponsor of the ACC, Big 12, and SEC meetings of college athletics.
10 Fun Facts About Chick-Fil-A
Throughout the decades, Chick-Fil-A has evolved into one of America’s most loved fast-food chains. But you might not be aware of a few facts about this chicken sandwich heavyweight. Here are ten things you probably didn’t know about Chick-Fil-A.
Ford is credited with Chick-Fil-A’s early success.
Dwarf Grill was located next to Ford Motor Corporation’s since-demolished assembly plant in Atlanta, and many of their early customers were Ford’s employees. This built-in customer base helped keep Dwarf Grill going.
The A in the company logo means “grade A.”
In the name Chick-Fil-A, the A represents “grade A”, since the brand aims for high quality, as per their Beginner’s Guide.
They source all of their potatoes from the Washington State.
The restaurant’s website says that they source all of their potatoes from the Washington State farmers near the Columbia River Basin.
The original chicken sandwich only came to be 15 years after Dwarf Grill was founded.
It wasn’t until after 15 years of Dwarf House’s existence, in 1961, that Cathy chanced upon the pressure cooker that would enable him to branch out and launch Chick-Fil-A six years later, in 1967. No one ever thought that recipe and idea development would be easy!
The chicken in Chick-Fil-A logo mascot is known as Doodles.
Prior to the 1995 debut of “eat mor chikin” cattle, the chicken that still features in the restaurant company’s logo was the Chick-Fil-A mascot. It’s called Doodles.
The restaurant chain first started out in food courts, spending a total of 19 years there.
The first restaurants of the Chick-Fil-A chain were only found in suburban shopping mall food courts. Nineteen years later, in 1986, the first standalone restaurant was set up.
New York has the biggest Chick-Fil-A restaurant in the world.
The world’s biggest Chick-Fil-A restaurant is in Lower Manhattan, New York. It’s more than 12,000 square feet and can accommodate up to 140 customers. It also boasts a rooftop terrace.
In Georgia, there’s a Hawaiian-inspired Chick-Fil-A restaurant
In Fayette, Georgia, there’s Chick-Fil-A restaurant themed around Hawaiian lifestyle known as Truett Luau. The location was the last one to be opened by founder Truett Cathy in 2013.
The menu has both traditional Chick-Fil-A fare like waffle fries and chicken sandwiches in addition to Hawaiian-themed classics like mahi-mahi and plate lunch. According to Chick-Fil-A’s website, almost the entire decor of the restaurant was picked by Cathy himself.
Chick-Fil-A sauce is prepared with three sauces
In 2012, Chick-Fil-A revealed that their sauce is in fact a blend of ranch, barbecue, and honey mustard sauces. Sounds like something you can make on your own!
Chick-Fil-A’s pickles are prepared on site
The restaurant chain brines its pickles for 3 days on location, slices them up and then stacks them on sandwiches.
Chick-Fil-A’s “secret menu” has a quesadilla
It seems every restaurant chain has a secret menu, so Chick-Fil-A is no exception. The restaurant’s secret menu includes a chicken quesadilla and tasty shake flavors.
The Chick-Fil-A Logo History
Most loyal Chick-Fil-A customers scarcely know the inspiration behind the company’s logo, which has gone through several changes since the restaurant was first opened. Let’s learn more about how one of America’s best places to eat ended up with its current logo.
Chick-Fil-A’s Original Logo Design
According to reliable sources, Cathy allegedly had the restaurant chain’s first logo designed for $50 in 1967. It’s said that the first design was actually drawn on a napkin. This version lasted three years until 1970.
While it’s hard to tell whether Chick-Fil-A would have gotten this far with that logo, some of the fundamental design elements of the first logo look lovely. The logo is obviously a winner since it’s a chicken. It stands for the product being offered in a confident, crystal clear manner.
Apart from that, it’s remarkable the number of times the restaurant chain has changed its logo over the years. The owners understood that they had to evolve to expand and that has worked perfectly well for them. Throughout the years, the logo has become more modern and streamlined, acknowledging the original chicken look but ever improving.
The Evolution of the Chick-Fil-A Logo
In 2012, it was revealed on Twitter that Louie Giglio and Evan Armstrong came up with the Chick-Fil-A logo way back in 1964. According to a number of sources, the original logo was known as Doodles, the rooster, where all of the letters were uppercase with the first and last letters (D and S) being a little larger.
The letter S was a little out of the ordinary. It was created with the top curve being the cockerel’s head, with eyes, comb, and beak to boot. But most sources don’t recognize it as the restaurant’s original logo.
The first Chick-Fil-A logo design was drawn in 1967, on a napkin no less! It became the symbol of the restaurant for three years, until 1970. It featured a rooster’s head, which was black except the wattle and comb that were red. The rooster seemed to be smiling as well.
Next to the beaming rooster head was the phrase “Chick-Fil-A.” The phrase was largely black except for the letter A and the hyphens, which were red. The letter A also looked like a grade you’d associate with academic papers.
The Chick-Fil-A logo was changed for the first time in 1970. The standalone rooster was no more, and the restaurant’s name was included. Therefore, the top of the first “C” in the restaurant’s name was made to curve inwards to create a head. This time, the comb and eye were red, and the comb resembled four toes. Meanwhile, the beak looked like a parrot.
The letter A was black, and its font was changed to resemble all the other letters. In 1985, a minor change took place. It’s not that obvious, but the only change was in the tone of red in the comb and eyes.
For quite some time, since the original version of the Chick-Fil-A logo appeared, the restaurant chain had used black and red. But in 1986, they got rid of the black entirely and kept the red. According to Chicken Wire, the comb and the beak were done away within 1996. But in the same year, the font was changed, and the logo retweaked to accommodate the comb and beak.
In 2012, Chick-Fil-A changed their logo once again. They felt it needed upgrading, so they contracted RBMM for the project. To avoid confusion among customers, the company didn’t want a drastic change in the logo. As such, RBMM made minimal changes to the logo while keeping the restaurant’s transition costs low.
The major tweak was in the rooster’s beak. In place of the smiling beak of a parrot that had been used for more than 40 years, the beak was altered to look more like that of a chicken. The comb was also slightly tweaked to look a little more upright. Lastly, the letters were slightly thinned to make the word “Chick-Fil-A” a bit more modern and legible. The logo has stayed the same since then.
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