Never a Dull Moment

I have witnessed a number of interesting things during my tenure at Chick-fil-A. There have been a number of interesting guest interactions, employee misfires, and crazy events. But this past week, something happened that might top them all.

Here is what happened: There was an armed bank robbery about a mile from our restaurant. This robbery was followed by a high speed car chase with the police. The police chase ended up taking a detour through our Chick-fil-A parking lot!

After exiting our lot, the assailants discovered they were surrounded by police so they made a U-turn and proceeded to drive past our store again. As they were passing our restaurant (literally 10 feet from our windows), they decided to open fire, which was then reciprocated by the police!! It is not everyday that you hear gunshots fired over your drive thru speaker system! (By the way, I am not lying or exaggerating…there was a gun fight between bank robbers and the police RIGHT outside of my restaurant!)

Somehow, they got away (temporarily) until they ran into a police car barricade a few minutes later. The armed robbers were both killed by gunshot wounds (2 policeman were shot, but neither was fatal).

For the remainder of the week detectives were in and out of our restaurant, police were surveying the land for evidence, and our surveillance cameras were constantly being rewound and observed. This was a fascinating (and memorable) experience and an eye-opening example of the importance of unit safety and security.

R & M

The primary responsibility of an Interim Manager is to set the incoming operator up for success. One of the best ways to ensure that this happens is to ensure that all the equipment in the restaurant is working properly and that all preventative maintenance has been taken care of.

This area of Repairs and Maintenance has been my primary of focus for the past month. While I have repaired approximately 25 or so different items in the restaurant so far, I will only focus on the “highlights” for this post.

Henny Pennys
Henny Penny Lids
All three Henny Penny pressure fryers had cracks on the top bar that supports the lids. Over time this will cause the arms to break in half, which can obviously be very dangerous. I enlisted the help of Gary Halbritter, and had all three complete lid assemblies replaced (it is actually cheaper to do this than to replace the arm by itself!).

Other Henny Penny Issues
The Hennys also had a number of smaller issues that needed to be addressed. There were a number of spacers (for the coils) that were missing, casters (wheels) that no longer would roll, and high limit switches that needed to be replaced. Also, on one of the open fryers, there was a high limit thermometer that was simply laying on the bottom of the henny, with the bracket that is supposed to hold the thermometer in place no where to be found.


Walk-In Refrigerator Door
The Walk-In refrigerator door would not fully close. It closed enough to block the cold air from the room temperature air but about a 1 inch gap remained at all times. After some investigation, in turned out that the hinges on the door were bad (it appeared that one had been rammed by a heavy cart unloading truck) and needed to be replaced. Now that these hinges have been replaced the door closes fully.


Landscaping
One of the first things I noticed when I arrived to Federal Heights was that the grass next to the sidewalks was dead. This was a result of the chemicals that they use to melt the ice in the winter. Once the ice would melt, the water (with the chemicals) would run off the sidewalk and into the grass resulting in about 6 inches to a foot of dead grass next to the sidewalk the following spring. I debated re-sodding the area but decided it would look the same after the winter. Instead, I had a rock boarder put in around the sidewalk. This way, the chemicals will drain onto the rock and the grassy area will be preserved. The entire restaurant looks so much better from the outside with this seemingly minor improvement.

Tile
There are a number of tiles that have been severely broken or cracked. A couple of them are so bad that our health inspector had issues with them. Also, there are some areas in the Dining Room where water was leaking through the grout. Instead of re-grouting these areas, a clear silicone was placed over the grout – which, quite simply, looks terrible. The work orders have been placed through Chick-fil-A Inc, and we are merely waiting for the company to come in and install the new tile.