I got a bone to pick-with-a Chick-fil-a

Look, I hate to have to do this, because Chick-fil-a is one of my very favorite restaurants, but I have a major problem that I need to share.

This weekend, my parents and I headed to the South Asheville Chick-fil-a location, which we do most weekends, because my parents seem to habitually win some contest where they get free sandwiches or free combos for a year. Now, this seems like a minor detail, but I have to note here that I had a slight headache. I was about to take some Excedrin Migraine, but that medicine is loaded with so much caffeine that I can’t have any more caffeine within like 48 hours or I’ll have a seizure. So anyways, I decided against the Excedrin Migraine because I was about to go to Chick-fil-a, and I figured that by having a delicious and refreshing Diet Coke with my chicken nuggets and waffle fries that I would consume enough caffeine to zap that headache away.

So we get to Chick-fil-a, and I’m ordering my combo, when I notice that all the soda machines have stickers that say ‘Caffeine-free Diet Coke.’

“Is that sticker right?” I asked the lady at the counter. “Is it really caffeine-free Diet Coke, or is it just a sticker that you put over the regular Diet Coke spigot?”

“The sticker is right,” said the lady.

“Well what else do you have that is diet?” I asked. Because it just seems silly to consume soda calories when I can drink fake calories and use the real calories for something later, like cookies.

“That’s the only diet thing we have,” said the lady.

Now, I applaud having caffeine-free things. And I applaud having diet things. But I don’t think the two, combined, should be the only option for each. Plenty of people are on diets but need caffeine; in fact, I am sure there are plenty of studies where the two are linked. And plenty of people don’t want caffeine but don’t mind soda calories (Sprite drinkers). And at one point, this Chick-fil-a offered both caffeinated and caffeine-free Diet Coke because my mom remembers having to specify.

So, because the lady was not really enthused by my request to mix a little regular Coke and a little caffeine-free Diet Coke, I ended up with caffeine-free Diet Coke and a raging headache. So I took a comment card and I am making a personal plea to Larry Meadows, Operator of the Chick-fil-a in South Asheville (I am including his name in case he ever googles himself), to please bring back the caffeinated Diet Coke.

My worry here, though, is that Chick-fil-a’s are franchises with individual owners, and will I have to fill out a comment form in every Chick-fil-a that I visit so that Diet Coke junkies can get their fix? But you know, I am willing to do that, because I need some caffeinated Diet Coke with my combo. In return, I would ask all my readers, who might ever be in a Chick-fil-a, to note whether regular Diet Coke is available, and if not, please fill out a comment form. Coke Zero is an acceptable substitute although I can’t say I understand how it differs from Diet Coke.

As long as I am complaining about Chick-fil-a, I would like to share a few other minor beefs (Get it? Beefs? But it’s Chick-fil-a? Get it?) with this otherwise fine restaurant:

-Failure to expand into the Pacific Northwest. Right after I moved to Seattle, my dad mailed me a coupon for a free combo or a free drink or something, and I had to mail it back and say, “sorry Dad, no Chick-fil-a’s out here.” Isn’t that story just so sad you could cry? Also, this incident led to my dad not really understanding why I had chosen to live where I did.

-The advertising campaign with the cows. I think the cows part is actually clever. What confuses me is why they are such poor spellers. Like, when they spell “chikin” instead of “chicken.” These cows were smart enough to mobilize, create an advertising campaign, steal some posterboard and paint, paint signs, and then hold them up, but they didn’t take the trouble to consult a dictionary or use a spell-checker? That just doesn’t add up. And since poor spelling is a pet peeve of mine, I would be more inclined to eat a cow, just to rid the world of bad spellers.

-This complex about being the “first” restaurant to do anything. This one is really my dad’s. Chick-fil-a likes to claim that they invented the chicken sandwich, and that they were the first people to serve waffle fries, and that they invented the modern day food court as we know it. Well, I can’t speak to the food court one, but apparently my dad’s mom made chicken sandwiches way before Chick-fil-a came along, and he’s pretty offended on her behalf. He’s also pretty sure he saw waffle fries before Chick-fil-a as well. So he’s just sick of their attitude.

-The business practices of the Chick-fil-a in the Biltmore Square Mall. This is a store-specific complaint, but if you’ve ever been to the Biltmore Square Mall in Asheville, then you know that the “food court” is a Chick-fil-a and a bunch of empty businesses. Apparently, particularly during the time in which I was in high school, because that’s where I heard it, that Chick-fil-a would stop at nothing to run out competing businesses. Some might say that this is "good business" and that "the market has spoken," but trust me when I say it sounded pretty unfair. I can’t really spell out what I heard they did (because the aforementioned Larry Meadows might find this on Google and sue me), but let’s just say that you have to eat Chick-fil-a at the Biltmore Square Mall if you want to eat.