The restaurant opened “softly” on Wednesday, Sept. 7, in preparation for Thursday’s formal opening and breakfast promotion.
Marla Davis, the franchise owner for the Washington Twp. restaurant, had decided to keep her nearly 100 employees on the payroll during the remodeling hiatus and have those who weren’t working at her other Chick-fil-A restaurant focus on community service and outreach.
“I did not want them to have to go on unemployment,” Davis said at the time. “Our goal is to give back to the community that has graciously supported us and made it necessary for our restaurant to expand.”
And that’s exactly what happened. While about 30 employees transferred to the Chick-fil-A at Cornerstone of Centerville, which Davis also oversees, to help out during the shutdown of their home store, the remaining 70 employees spent a cumulative 4,600 hours working on community projects and giving away food for 14 local non-profit organizations, 13 schools and two hospitals, a Chick-fil-A spokeswoman said.
The community-service projects included working at Habitat for Humanity sites, distributing shoes and meals to young refugees with Shoes 4 the Shoeless, cleaning stables and setting up a fund-raising gala for the Therapeutic Riding Institute, serving meals at multiple community shelters, and sending a group to Louisiana to help with flood relief.
The Washington Twp. Chick-fil-A’s remodeling project included installation of a dual production line with more hood space to house additional fryers and grills, allowing separate teams to prepare orders for drive-through customers and dine-in/carryout customers, Davis said. A new walk-in cooler and freezer were added, along with an overhauled drive-through window and an additional breading table and work area to better accommodate catering orders.
The restaurant is open from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and like all Chick-fil-A locations, it is closed on Sunday.
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