Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the new Chick-fil-A in the K-State Student Union.
Preceded by other restaurants in the Union, such as Panda Express, Subway and Qdoba, Chick-fil-A has been anticipated by many students.
“I am so excited,” Alexis Abadayan, freshman in arts and sciences, said. “I haven’t been this excited about food since a Taco Bell was built by my house. I am going to eat (at Chick-fil-A) as often as I can,”
The Chick-fil-A at the Union opened Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.
Around 11:00 a.m., Amy Van Duesen, manager of the Union’s Chick-fil-A, said over 100 people had already been served and they projected to make about $10,000.
The restaurant currently does not know how many people it is projected to serve on a daily basis, but those estimates will be formed after more days of business, Van Duesen said.
The Chick-fil-A in the Union is slightly different from the franchise’s other stores. The new Chick-fil-A has a more limited menu, such as not selling the spicy chicken breakfast biscuit or biscuits and gravy, among other meals.
“We have the basic main menu items,” Van Duesen said. “We just don’t have some that wouldn’t be financially in our best interest to serve.”
New K-State payment method
Another difference between the Chick-fil-A in the Union and other locations is that Chick-fil-A’s app, Chick-fil-A One, will not be used.
Instead, the Union will be using an app called Tapingo.
“Tapingo will connect to a student’s Cat Cash account, or can be loaded directly from a credit account, and be used at the restaurants in the Union and across campus,” Jeff Clark, assistant director of retail services at the Union, said.
Tapingo will have a soft launch in about eight weeks and a full launch sometime after spring break. It will be available on both iPhones and Androids.
“We’ve been working on this system for nearly six months,” Clark said. “We are expecting a lot of use from students.”
Clark said Call Hall Dairy Bar and Cornerstone Bakery will not be using Tapingo for payments yet.
According to Clark, the message about the new features of the Union have not been made as public as they should be.
“When the Union is finally pretty much complete, we will start doing a lot more marketing of what we have here,” Clark said.
Chick-fil-A will be open 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays.
