Chick-fil-A is going global yet again.
The fast food giant is expanding in British Columbia, home to major cities including Vancouver and Victoria, as well as Canada’s dramatic western coastal mountains and parts of the Canadian Rockies.
Chick-fil-A said it will add five to seven new restaurants in British Columbia by 2030. The first restaurant in the province will open by late 2027 or early 2028, according to a Wednesday news release from the company.
In the release, Jessica Sisk Roehle, Chick-fil-A’s director of restaurant development in Canada, said the owner-operators of each location will bring hundreds of new jobs to their communities. Each location will employ between 80 and 120 employees, the release said. This is in line with the number of employees hired at other Canadian locations.
“British Columbia has a number of vibrant, thriving communities across the province that makes it such a great place for us to grow,” Sisk Roehle said in the release.
Credit: special
Credit: special
The announcement comes fresh off the heels of Chick-fil-A’s expansion into Alberta, a province neighboring British Columbia to the east. Last year, the College Park-based chain opened three restaurants in Calgary and Edmonton, two of the largest cities in Alberta.
Chick-fil-A outlined plans to expand into Canada in 2018. The company now has 22 locations across Ontario and Alberta. This year alone, Chick-fil-A plans to open eight restaurants in the two provinces.
But the company is also growing its international footprint elsewhere. In 2023, Chick-fil-A confirmed plans for a $1 billion expansion that would include opening restaurants in Asia and Europe. Its first restaurant in Singapore will launch in late 2025, Chick-fil-A said in October.
Andrew Cathy, the company’s chief executive, told The Wall Street Journal in 2023 that developing an international presence was necessary as it charts its future. “We feel like it’s time to continue to innovate and try and test how we will do in international markets so that we can learn,” Cathy told WSJ.
Chick-fil-A, now entering its 58th year, is the third-largest restaurant chain in the U.S. by annual system sales, according to restaurant and alcohol industry research firm Technomic. The privately held company has more than 3,000 restaurants across the globe, most of which are franchises, and more than 200,000 employees.
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