The Atlanta-based fried chicken chain, which runs more than 2,800 restaurants across the US, says the opening will be led by local owner-operator Mike Hoy.
MCA, Restaurant’s sister site, understands Hoy has experience at Nando’s UK as insight lead, as well as at Restaurant Brands International (RBI) with the Tim Hortons brand as area franchise lead – EMEA in Switzerland.
It will mark Chick-fil-A’s first opening in England since it announced two years ago that it was planning to relaunch in the UK having previously tried and failed to get a foothold in the market back in 2019.
The group returned to the UK earlier this year with a double opening in Northern Ireland as part of a licensing partnership with motorway service areas operator Applegreen.
It has committed to investing more than $100m in the UK in the next 10 years.
“The investment we’re making in the UK not only present opportunities for our business, but are also a chance for us to bring what makes Chick-fil-A special to new places – great food and remarkable hospitality, our unique franchise model and the positive impact we have in communities,” says Andrew T. Cathy, chief executive officer of Chick-fil-A.
In 2019 Chick-fil-A opened a site within Reading’s Oracle shopping centre that was marked for closure little more than a week later.
The chicken chain’s reported historic donations to anti-LGBT+ organisations led gay rights charity Reading Pride to call for a boycott of the restaurant, and the Oracle later announced it was not planning to extend the chain’s lease beyond its six-month pilot period. I
It subsequently launched a site at the Macdonald Aviemore Hotel in the Scottish Highlands, but that site closed too within a few months.
Chick-fil-A has in recent years overhauled its philanthropic policy to focus on education, homelessness and hunger.
To commemorate the Leeds opening, the group says it will donate $25,000 to non-profit organisations in the UK.