Chick-fil-A’s New FiDi Location Will Be a Five-Story Behemoth

Southern fried chicken sandwich chain Chick-fil-A’s third Manhattan location will be the biggest outpost of the restaurant in the country — with a whopping five levels, including a rooftop terrace with a view of One World Trade.

Word’s been out since 2015 that the company planned to open at 144 Fulton Street, between Broadway and Nassau Street, but this week, the chain announced that the more than 12,000-square-feet location is the largest one it’s ever built. It will open in 2018.

The restaurant takes over the whole building and will have floor-to-ceiling windows on every level, along with a rear courtyard. Three of the five levels will be available to the public, seating a total of 140 people, while the other two will be reserved for kitchen prep. The rooftop will have views and seating, and it’s the second time the company has added a rooftop terrace to a restaurant.

A press release on the company’s site also notes that the design was built to “give a subtle impression of the Twin Towers” as an homage to the site of 9/11.

Chick-fil-A

Chick-fil-A has two other standalone locations in Manhattan, both in Midtown. The Atlanta-based chain first entered New York City in 2015 near Herald Square, and that location was, at the time, the biggest outpost of the restaurant in the country. Despite backlash to the CEO’s anti-LGBT comments, both NYC locations debuted to long lines.

Last year, the company, which has more than 2,000 outposts in the U.S., said it had plans to open more than a dozen locations in the New York area by the end of 2017, but so far, no more new locations have been announced.

• Largest Chick-fil-A Ever to Open in New York's Financial District [Gothamist]