S. Truett Cathy, born in 1921 and raised Southern Baptist, opened the Dwarf Grill in Hapeville, Georgia, in 1946 with four tables and ten counter stools, serving workers from the nearby Ford Motor Company assembly plant. After 15 years running the diner, he found a commercial pressure fryer in 1961 that cooked a boneless chicken breast as fast as a burger. From 1964 to 1967 he licensed the sandwich to more than 50 outlets, including Waffle House and the Houston Astrodome, then pulled the licenses and opened the first Chick-fil-A in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall in 1967.

Cathy closed every store on Sundays, Thanksgiving and Christmas and refused to take the company public. Operators pay $10,000, while the company owns the real estate and equipment and takes about 15% of sales plus half of pre-tax profit. In 2012 son Dan Cathy’s statements against same-sex marriage, along with WinShape Foundation donations, drew boycotts and a record Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day organized by Mike Huckabee. In 2019 the company redirected its giving to education, homelessness and hunger.

• Southern cooks put fried chicken on bread long before 1961; Cathy’s real advance was cooking it fast enough for a lunch rush.
• Dan Cathy later said his father was simply exhausted by the end of the week, part of why Sunday closing began.
• Mayors of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco spoke out against the chain’s expansion during the 2012 controversy.
• At 92, after a trip to Hawaii, Cathy opened Truett’s Luau in Fayetteville, Georgia, in 2013.
• Cathy died in 2014, and in 2022 the average Chick-fil-A grossed $6.71 million, the top per-store figure in U.S. fast food.