Students can now visit the Five Points Chick-fil-A until 3 a.m. on Friday night to Saturday morning. The fast food restaurant announced the location would test late night hours beginning Jan. 18.
“It’s the best quality of food open very late,” said Rivers Slade, a second-year finance student. “There’s no other food that's as good as this that’s open this late.”
Like every Chick-fil-A, the Five Points location will remain closed on Sundays and keep its regular 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. hours on other days. Other late night chain restaurants in Five Points are Waffle House, open 24 hours, and Cook Out, open until 5 a.m. on Fridays.
Marla Sarah works as an Uber and Lyft driver on the weekend during the late night hours and is thankful for a place to get food from so late at night.
“It’s nicer to have a couple things open later because there’s not that much open too late here with good options,” Sarah said.
Before Chick-fil-A began testing the late night hours, many students went to Cook Out on their way out of the bars in Five Points. Last weekend, much of the crowd seems to have shifted to Chick-fil-A.
“I get really hungry late at night, and normally I go to Cookout but Chick-fil-A’s open so I came here,” Slade said.
Not everyone coming into Chick-fil-A is coming from the bars. Paige Golson, a fourth-year retail management student, and her friend came from home late. But Golson also said she believes the late night hours will benefit the franchise.
“They’ll make more business because everyone that’s drunk will come down here too,” Golson said.
Police officers are stationed inside and outside Chick-fil-A to monitor the flow of students, and employees work quickly to clear tables despite the volume of customers.
“As long as the people who work here want to work 'til 3 a.m. I say there’s no problem with it,” said Matthew Rubio, a third-year computer science student.
It is unknown if Chick-fil-A has decided whether to extend hours on Thursday and Saturday as well. However, students are taking advantage of the late night hours on Friday for late night fast food.
“They’re going to get all the money they can get from all these people because they’re drunk,” said Kyle Ecton, second-year business student. "They want food and they definitely want Chick-fil-a.”