An American fast food business that faced backlash from the homosexual community when it first opened in the UK is considering another venture.

Chick-Fil-A intends to open five restaurants in the United Kingdom.

The locations have yet to be determined, but the first will open in early 2025.

Its earlier entry into the UK market in 2019 was met with a boycott due to its founders’ sponsorship for Christian organizations opposed to same-sex marriage.

The Cathy family, who started the company, continues to control it, but has changed its policy in recent years.

It appointed its first head of diversity in 2020 and has shifted its philanthropic giving focus to education and hunger relief.

However, according to the family’s Christian principles, restaurants do not operate on Sundays, a policy that will be implemented in the UK as well.

“From our earliest days, we’ve worked to positively influence the places we call home, and this will be the same for our stores in the UK,” said Joanna Symonds, Chick-Fil-A’s head of UK operations.

“We encourage our operators to collaborate with organizations that support and positively impact their local communities, delivering great food and wider benefits to those around them,” she said.

a decade divided
Chick-fil-A announced a $100 million investment in the United Kingdom over the next ten years. The majority of the locations would be run and owned as franchises, with each branch expected to employ between 80 and 120 people.

The Atlanta-based company, known for its chicken sandwiches, already has 2,800 locations in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada, with aspirations to expand into Europe and Asia.

At a time when the chicken brand was already dividing opinion in its home market, it established a temporary pop-up store in Reading’s The Oracle shopping mall in 2019.