We’ve always been huge fans of Chick-Fil-A, but now since we’ve been on the backstage home office tour, we are even bigger fans! I had no idea that they even offered these tours, so I’m excited to tell you about them!
You have a choice between the Original and the Deluxe tour. On the Original, you can learn the history of the Chick-fil-A founder, Truett Cathy, and the core values of the company with a visit to the History Museum. This tour is FREE! The Deluxe offers this plus you can experience Truett Cathy’s office, take a quick shuttle ride to see new product development in “The Kitchen” and visit the “Hatch” innovation center. It is $15 per person. Both require reservations. You can find more about that HERE.
We took the Deluxe tour along with some other Chick-Fil-A mom bloggers today. It was a ton of fun! During the tour, we were even allowed to sample some top secret new items that will be rolling out next year! How exciting is that! I wish I could tell you about them, but I’m sworn to secrecy 🙂
The Story of Chick-fil-A® and founder, Truett Cathy, encompasses the BIG 3 ideas:
- Treat Others Right
- Make Smart Decisions
- Maximize Your Potential
Throughout the tour, you’ll see these ideas expressed.
Chick-Fil-A has a huge warehouse called the Hatch Innovation Center that they use for training. In this warehouse, they actually have 3 prototype working restaurants for training! These were pretty neat to see! Everyone was bustling around making sure that everything went smoothly and finding out ways to make the restaurants work more efficient. They even had a fake drive-thru where they used trikes instead of cars. We could see a lot of the neat ideas that are being tossed around at Chick-Fil-A from future restaurant designs to uniform ideas.
On top of everything in the warehouse, EVERYONE was so happy! All of the employees were genuinely happy! We even witnessed a group of employees sitting down for a Bible study together! How many other jobs offer that!? Our tour guide told us that they have miles of walking trails throughout the campus and also a fishing pond. If someone has a bad day, they are free to go for a walk to clear their head or even go fishing! Working out at the wellness center is also an option. My husband was about ready to switch jobs 😉 He especially wanted to work in the kitchen where they sample food daily and work on creating new an exciting menu item! We were able to sample the new Greek yogurt that is rolling out right now and it was very good! Twice the protein and half the sugar!
We loved seeing all the fun cars and even the Batmobile in the “Moo-Seum”. So many beautiful collectable cars! Up in Truett Cathy’s office, we heard stories about the Cathy family and the kids were even invited to sit at his desk. The flag was given to Truett from soldiers in Operation Enduring Freedom. So much history, so many interesting facts! I think we will have to take another trip just to have time to see everything in more depth!
Of course, no trip is complete without taking a picture on their billboard! Don’t worry, this was on the ground, not up in the air!
Big thanks to Chick-Fil-A to having us out for the day! We had a great time! Can’t wait to come back!
Again, if you’re interested in taking a FREE Original or $15 Deluxe Tour, visit their website.