Chick-fil-A is Headed to the Old Fourth Ward

The fast food joint has filed for permits to construct a new drive-thru restaurant.
Chick-fil-A is headed to the old fourth ward
Photo: Official

It looks like the Old Fourth Ward is finally getting its very own Chick-fil-A. The fast food joint has had its eyes set on converting the Texaco at 689 Boulevard NE into a drive-thru location, and has now officially filed for permits at the address. What Now Atlanta reached out, but a franchisee was not immediately available for comment.

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The restaurant will be built from the ground up, complete with a kiosk and a drive-thru. The permits come after the BeltLine Design Review Committee’s (DRC) initial rejection of restaurant’s plans, who claimed the project “did not represent good urbanism.”

The immediate surrounding area is no stranger to fast food. Taco Bell, Popeye’s, Wendy’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Domino’s are all right around the corner from the proposed Chick-fil-A location, but if we know anything about Chick-fil-A, it’s that the restaurant’s cult-like following won’t waste time at any other fast food joint when they could be slathering Chick-fil-A Sauce all over their spicy chicken sandwiches.

No word yet on when the new location will open, but we expect when it does, the drive-thru line will probably be around the block.

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende is a freelance writer and soon-to-be graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The New York Times Style Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Ohio Review online, and Carve Magazine. She lives in Southern California, where she’s completing her first short story collection and desperately trying to conform to surf culture.
Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende is a freelance writer and soon-to-be graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The New York Times Style Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Ohio Review online, and Carve Magazine. She lives in Southern California, where she’s completing her first short story collection and desperately trying to conform to surf culture.

9 Responses

  1. Chick-fil-A should work with a developer to build a flagship restaurant below residential. This is a prominent and valuable corner on Historic Ponce de Leon. a cheap drive thru is not highest and best use. Atlanta needs housing– affordable and market rate.

  2. But did they update the plans at all? My understanding is that filing for permits doesn’t tell you anything about if it’s going to be approved.

    Either they made significant changes and the design committee will approve it, or they didn’t make changes and the council plans to approve it. Or or their permits are denied. I’ll be interested to see what happens here.

  3. It’s disappointing that O4W wasn’t able to stop Chick-fil-a from coming into their neighborhood. Unfortunately, the Beltline DRC is only a suggestion and has no teeth and no authority to enforce anything. It’s up to CFA to decide to place nice or not and to decide to do what’s best for Atlanta or construct a building that does not meet the needs of the neighborhood or city. They are building an ugly car-sentric location on Howell Mill that will be bad for traffic and the neighborhood.

  4. Regardless if you like fast food or not, putting a very heavy car-centric drive-though on an already disfunctional busy intersection is a pure planning nightmare. I realize money and developers have more pull than residents, but really? This a major middle finger to everyone working to make intown more functional, walk-able, less car-centric, more urban, better designed and plain old more livable. I do not think the gas station is well-maintained, but this is a major step down. Traffic will be a mess, with back-ups on these already messy streets. Ugh!

  5. Y’all O4W design review people are worse than the Dunwoody Village design review quacks. Lighten up….it is a highly successful chicken chain with really good food, good jobs. If you look closely, you will see the drive-thru is entirely enclosed so as to block the view of the long string of cars that will surly patronize the restaurant.

    1. the long string of cars that will surly patronize the restaurant” = big traffic backups at an already rough intersection.

      1. Have you noticed the traffic all around PCM? Or will this one fast food joint in the O4W be the end of the world as O4W knows it. Oh…and don’t O4W people walk everywhere….so maybe there wont be that many cars? Maybe the drive-thru will be a long like of bikes & scooters?

        1. At the risk that you are being serious and not trolling, yes this is setting up to be a major traffic disruption. Backed up traffic on the busy street(s) at a major messy intersection is not good for planning, neighbors, commuters, traffic, or even your scooter riders. Look at the Buckhead location at Piedmont and Sidney Marcus to see how a mess happens.

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