Chick-fil-A Plans Restaurants in New York City - East Idaho News
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Chick-fil-A Plans Restaurants in New York City

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072512 ChickFilALogo?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1397074574975PR NewsFoto/Chick Fil-A(NEW YORK) — Chick-fil-A plans to open about 100 restaurants this year, with a large number in New York City, but some gay rights advocates are wary of the popular fast-food chain’s arrival.

“If we can’t do it in New York, we have no business going anywhere else,” Woody Faulk, Chick-fil-A’s vice president of design and innovation, told USA Today.

Nathan Schaefer, executive director of nonprofit Empire State Pride Agenda, said he hopes Chick-fil-A’s proposed presence in New York “illuminates for them how diversity and inclusion are necessary guiding principles to running a successful business.”

“Companies are increasingly realizing that LGBT inclusive practices and policies are not just on the right side of history, but also good for business,” Schaefer said in a statement about “truly LGBT-friendly” companies.

Schaefer is referring to 2012 statements by Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy in an article published on July 16 by the Baptist Press. “We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit,” Cathy said. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

The company reiterated at the time that it does not discriminate against gay employees or customers.

Chick-fil-A, founded in 1967, has nearly 1,800 restaurants in 39 states and Washington, D.C., the company says. The company only has one location in New York City: in a New York University dormitory.

A spokeswoman for Chick-fil-A, privately held and based in Atlanta, Ga., declined to comment further about its expansion plans, instead choosing to draw attention to its new menu items that include grilled chicken entrees after a $50 million investment and seven years of testing.

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