This restaurant is giving Brooklyn the bird!
Bigwigs at southern fried chicken joint Chick-fil-A are dropping gobs of cash to transform a neglected Flatbush Avenue storefront near the Barclays Center into the chain’s first Kings County location, according to the landlord who leased the space.
“They’re going to spend big money to make the restaurant work,” said Michael Pintchik, who owns the poultry purveyor’s future home between Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street. “It’s not a short-term lease, it will be here for many years.”
Pintchik declined to discuss the specifics of the fried-chicken juggernaut’s lease, saying he wanted to protect his tenant’s right to privacy, and a spokesman for the eatery kept his beak sealed even tighter, admitting only that the company is looking at space near the Prospect Heights arena.
“While we are still early in the process, we are excited to confirm that Chick-fil-A is actively pursuing a restaurant location in Brooklyn across from the Barclays Center,” said Rob Entsminger.
The new storefront, which is adjacent to Shake Shack, will be the fast-food chain’s seventh in New York City when it opens, but likely will not be it’s biggest — that honor goes to a five-story outpost with rooftop dining in the outer borough of Manhattan, which bigwigs heralded as the world’s largest Chick-fil-A when it opened in March.
The chain generated some $8 billion in revenue from its more than 2,100 restaurants in 2016, Business Insider reported the following year — raking in the cash even while closing all branches every Sunday due to the Christian roots of its now-deceased founder, whose company motto is “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us, and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A.”
The poultry peddler’s public piety has stirred controversy in the past, including in 2009 when the company’s philanthropic arm donated more than $1.5 million to anti-LGBTQ causes, and in 2012 when its president claimed that same-sex couples would incur the wrath of god.
“I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about,” Dan Cathy, son of Chick-fil-A founder Truett Cathy, told the Christian Post that year.
Pintchik, however, insisted his new tenant will positively involve itself in the local community once it arrives — although he’s not sure how, he said.
“They’re concerned about being a good citizen in the community,” the landlord said. “I don’t know how they’re going to do it, but I think they’re ultimately going to be good neighbors.”
