Chick-fil-A reported $22 billion in systemwide sales in 2024 from 3,109 restaurants, putting it among the three largest US restaurant chains by sales, behind McDonald’s and alongside Starbucks. The menu that got it there is still built around one item: a pressure-cooked chicken breast on a buttered bun with two pickles, worked out at a 1940s diner south of Atlanta.
A timeline from one diner to a national chain
The company’s own dates, and those on a 2017 state historical marker, line up like this:
- May 23, 1946: S. Truett Cathy and his brother Ben open the Dwarf Grill in Hapeville, Georgia, across from a Ford assembly plant. It seats 10 at stools plus four booths, and it is closed on Sundays from the first week.
- 1949: Ben Cathy and another brother die in a plane crash. Truett and his wife, Jeannette, keep running the diner.
- Early 1960s: Cathy tries cooking boneless breasts in a pressure fryer and finds the chicken is ready about as fast as a hamburger. He registers the Chick-fil-A name.
- 1964: After years of testing seasoning blends on regulars, he settles on the recipe still used today.
- 1964 to 1967: The sandwich is licensed to more than 50 outside kitchens, including Waffle House and concession stands at the new Houston Astrodome.
- November 24, 1967: The first Chick-fil-A restaurant opens in the food court of Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta, and the licensing deals end.
- April 16, 1986: The first freestanding restaurant opens on North Druid Hills Road in Atlanta.
- 2014: Cathy dies at 93. His grandson Andrew Cathy has been chief executive since 2021.
Why the mall store mattered more than the sandwich
The order of events is the interesting part. Cathy had a popular product by 1964, but selling it through other people’s kitchens meant he could not control how it was cooked. Pulling it back after three years and putting it in one small counter of his own was the real business decision.
Malls also suited a cautious owner. A food-court unit cost far less than buying land and building from scratch, and Cathy grew that way for close to two decades. Count it out: 21 years passed between the Dwarf Grill opening and the first Chick-fil-A, then another 19 before the company built a standalone restaurant. Sales passed $2 billion by 2006 and reached $8 billion a decade later.
One common belief deserves a correction. The company long promoted its product as the original chicken sandwich, and the Georgia Historical Society marker calls it “widely considered the first-ever fried chicken breast sandwich.” Published research has shown that fried chicken sandwiches were sold before Cathy’s, so the defensible claim is narrower: Chick-fil-A was the first national chain to make one its flagship item.
The scale now, with the working shown
Dividing 2024 sales by restaurant count gives a rough figure per location:
$22 billion ÷ 3,109 restaurants = about $7.1 million each.
McDonald’s: $53.5 billion ÷ 13,559 US restaurants = about $3.9 million each.
That is roughly 1.8 times as much per restaurant, even though every Chick-fil-A is shut on Sundays. The average unit volume reported for the chain is higher still, at $7.5 million, so the simple division understates it. Up to 60 percent of sales now come through drive-throughs, which explains the long lines that have drawn traffic complaints in more than 20 states.
The chain operates in 48 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom and Singapore, where its first Asian restaurant opened on December 11, 2025. The Cathy family still owns it outright; Truett Cathy opposed taking the company public.
The original Hapeville building, rebuilt and reopened in 2022, still stands at 461 North Central Avenue, with an extra child-sized front door beside the full-size entrances and the historical marker outside.
Further reading
Image: John Phelan, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. How we work.
