Chick-fil-A will close its longstanding Sandy Springs restaurant this week after 30 years in business. The Atlanta-based company plans to scrape & rebuild the restaurant on its current parcel - 5925 Roswell Road - and reopen it next summer.
The Chick-fil-A will close as of December 14, according to a Facebook announcement from local owner/operator, Lawson Bailey. There has been no formal announcement as to what improvements are planned for or how large the new restaurant will be.
The Sandy Springs restaurant and its iconic Chick-fil-A curve and 90s era building was on our mental "endangered list" and its demolition comes as little surprise given what the company has done in recent years to similar age, and even newer restaurants, around Atlanta.
It's incredibly disappointing to see so many cool, distinctive restaurant buildings - whether current like Chick-fil-A, McDonald's or Arby's or past like Burger Chef - replaced with monotonous boxy buildings.
Chick-fil-A's buildings were once so unique they were featured prominently on some of the company's ties. The restaurants the chain is building now could be stripped of their logo and most people would not know whether the building was a Chick-fil-a, a burger joint or a bank!
ToNeTo Atlanta previously covered several of the company's scrape & rebuild projects including the restaurant at North Druid Hills and Briarcliff Road near what is now the City of Brookhaven. The Briarcliff restaurant, which when it opened in 1986 was the brand's first freestanding unit to carry the Chick-fil-A moniker, closed in 2017 and reopened in early 2018 after being completely rebuilt.
In the years since the Briarcliff rebuild, the company has completed other scrape & rebuilds on the restaurant's existing parcels in Chamblee, Douglasville, Roswell, Norcross, Smyrna and Lilburn, among others. Other similar age locations in Marietta, Snellville, Gainesville and Tucker, among others, were rebuilt on other nearby parcels. The company has also completed rebuild projects on newer locations including 2000-era restaurants on Satellite Boulevard in Duluth and will soon reopen their Peachtree Road restaurant in South Buckhead where the new restaurant occupies a combined larger parcel.
Chick-fil-A restaurants on Buford Highway in Doraville and Memorial Drive in Stone Mountain, as well as a Dwarf House on Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth are among the remaining Atlanta area locations most at risk of being rebuilt and or relocated.
Are you sad to see this vintage Chick-fil-A replaced with a new restaurant? What is your favorite Chick-fil-A menu item? What do you think of the restaurant buildings of today?
Please share your thoughts below.