Our restaurant is located right outside of a flourishing mall. There are hundreds of popular retail stores around us in every direction as well. Suffice it to say, we were expecting a very busy Black Friday.
During the week prior to Thanksgiving, we spent hours planning for this day…it was surely going to be like a second grand opening! We carefully planned every detail, coached the team, and prepared for almost every possible scenario. ALMOST every scenario. Unfortunately, one of the only things we failed to plan for was the second slowest Friday since our store opened! The area around us was actually TOO busy. All of the roads, including the mall access road that our entrance is located off of, were complete gridlock. Nobody was even considering entering our parking lot because it was sure to add 20-30 minutes to their drive.
What made Black Friday such a great day is how the leaders and the team responded to the initial disappointment. We decided that with all of the resources at our disposal, we were going to bring our delicious food to all of the people! We put sandwiches in TMS bags and handed them out to all of the cars stuck in traffic!
The response was incredible. Roughly 75% of the people we gave sandwiches to had never had Chick-fil-A, and a large number did not even know where we were located! (this was literally 100 feet from our building) Rather than being complacent and let down, we made the most of what we had. I am proud of the way we handled our disappointing day – the attitude our team showed was admirable and productive.
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