Chick-fil-A will soon close its longstanding location at 3100 South Cobb Drive in Smyrna. The restaurant, which first opened December 15, 1988, will close Friday April 13, and be demolished and rebuilt, similar to the "scrape & rebuild" the company completed this past January on North Druid Hills Road in Atlanta. The freestanding North Druid Hills Chick-fil-A was referred to as the oldest freestanding Chick-fil-A restaurant in the company. The North Druid Hills restaurant opened April 16, 1986, and was soon followed by others, South Cobb Drive among them.
 |
| Chick-fil-A at 3100 South Cobb Drive in Smyrna |
The 3100 South Cobb Drive location should not be confused with the 5120 South Cobb Drive location which opened in 2008 in a converted Church's Chicken. The 5120 location, just off 1-285 and about four miles from the 3100 location, will remain open and welcome Smyrna area Chick-fil-A patrons looking to get their fix.
The 3100 restaurant is expected to remain closed for five to six months with an expected reopening later this fall.
In East Cobb, the freestanding Chick-fil-A at 1201 Johnson Ferry Road in Woodlawn Square shopping center will also close and be rebuilt. The restaurant, which opened August 12, 1987, is expected to close Monday, July 9, with a planned reopening in November.
It is not yet known if either of the locations will participate in Chick-fil-A's "First 100" opening promotion upon their completion.
Chick-fil-A's rebuilding efforts are meant to create more efficient restaurants, better able to accommodate and serve customers in a variety of ways.
Chick-fil-A has in recent years invested heavily in rebuilding existing Atlanta area restaurants. The Chick-fil-A on Windy Hill Road reopened in 2016, followed by the drive-thru-only (DTO) Chick-fil-A on Cobb Parkway at Akers Mill Square last year. In addition to the North Druid Hills reopening this past January, the DTO on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs reopened last month.
The DTO on Fairburn Road in Douglasville closed in February and is expected to reopen in July. It will reportedly look similar to the rebuilt DTO locations on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs and on Cobb Parkway near Cumberland Mall. Another Douglasville area Chick-fil-A, on GA-Highway 5 near Arbor Place Mall, was also slated to rebuild this year, but those plans have been pushed into 2019.
Other 80s era Chick-fil-A restaurants including those in Chamblee, Doraville, Douglasville, Duluth (2), Lilburn, Marietta, Norcross and Tucker, among others, are likely to be rebuilt in the coming years, although Chick-fil-A's representatives have yet to comment on when such projects might begin.
Are you excited for the rebuilt Smyrna and East Cobb Chick-fil-A restaurants? Do you think that the new restaurants are an improvement over their prior iterations? What is your favorite fast food chicken chain?
Please share your thoughts below.