A Broken Soldier Invented Chick-fil-A. This Is How It Happened.

Can I take your order? Can I have a cheeseburger please? And you said cheeseburger. Kathy Truett was a high school student when she decided to get serious about her future. She opened the restaurant with her younger brother just two years later she lost him and another brother on a plane. accident and then his second restaurant burned down after he was forced to take out a loan and start over for the third time when customers left, he took his mother's fried

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en recipe and created Chick-fil-a, a fortune of 11 billion dollars that survived the great depression 46 years before the first

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-fil-a restaurant opened in 1921 truitt kathy was born in edenton georgia into a family of seven children when the great depression hit they moved to a project public housing in central Atlanta By then Truitt's father's job as an insurance salesman was no longer enough to support them, so his mother welcomed the borders into their small one-bathroom home to get to End of the month.

Truett helped her make the beds and clean the bathroom. When he was free from her, he watched her prepare many dishes, including a traditional dish. Southern-Style Fried Chicken Truett later took on several odd jobs to help support the family. He sold Coca-Cola bottles, delivered newspapers and even handed out peanuts. He eventually became the main breadwinner of the family, but as he excelled at work, his studies took a backseat. He became a C student who had no confidence in himself and even questioned his social skills. It seemed like other people were more talented than me. We used to share reading books and the person he read with me came out ahead.

I just couldn't understand. After high school he never had a chance to redeem himself in college He was drafted into the US Army during World War II When he was honorably discharged He and his brother Ben decided it was time to get serious about their future at that small time 24- One-hour diners appeared all over the country, they had a feeling that they could be successful in the business and decided to open one together to raise the money. Truett sold his car and took out a loan for a total of ten thousand dollars. and ben opened a restaurant called the house of the dwarfs because of its size there were only four tables and ten stools the business grew quickly but not without sacrifice they alternated 12 hour shifts and only took off on sundays i ran out but it was a temporary price to pay the future years later the kathy siblings discovered that god had different plans for them that changed the course of their lives forever losing everything overnight twice 25 years before chick-fil-a tripled in size one saturday ben and another Horus brother flew a small plane to attend an air show in Tennessee but never made it or passed through Georgia the plane's engine gave out and crashed none of Truitt's brothers survived the loss hit me especially hard on Monday morning when I saw Ben do the report sheet on Saturday afternoon in good health I realized he would never return and the tears flowed with his wife and young son.

Truett had no choice but to continue with his activities as usual. He also felt obligated to ensure that his brother's wife and niece were cared for for the rest of their lives. From then on, Jeannette, Truitt's wife, worked countless hours together at the restaurant, creating a warm family atmosphere that helped the business grow. Only two years later they managed to build a second restaurant in Forest Park Georgia, but overnight his fledgling empire was cut in half during the In the wee hours of a cold morning, his second restaurant caught fire at dusk. It was destroyed. Insurance alone was not enough to rebuild it.

I was faced with some difficult questions. Would you take a giant step back and return to just one restaurant, which would mean having to lay off employees? Should I incur more debt and rebuild the restaurant as it was or is it time for something new? Truitt was convinced it was time for something new, so he took out a loan of 90,000 and opened his third restaurant,

this

time introducing a cafeteria style. -Service concept at the time, many Americans were accustomed to being served by waiters, still a national magazine praised its concept as visionary, but just an hour into opening day, Truett realized he had made a big mistake. mistake.

Where are the waitresses in our coffee refill customers? he asked as they walked away, they hated the new concept for three months. Trud wasn't sure what to do, so he consulted a friend and restaurant owner. Ted Davis, you will lose clients but you will gain others. Ted advised him, but if it bothers you, he would do it. You would like to lease his building and buy his equipment. Truit considered his offer was assigned to take a much-needed break and a grade. He learned the hard way that it's not easy to retain customers and that, along with quality customer service, remains key to success in turning waste into opportunity 32 years before Chick-fil-a opened its number 1 location. 500 for years, the first and last standing dwarf house served mostly burgers until Truett received an unexpected visitor.

Two brothers named Jim and Hal Good asked him if he would be interested in purchasing boneless, skinless chicken breast. Poultry store owners initially prepared them for Delta Airlines, but they were too big to fit on meal trays, so the airline threw them out. What could he do with these? Truett immediately thought to himself and remembered his mother's Southern fried chicken recipe. He marinated the chicken overnight and then used skillets to pressure cook it in a peanut boil. True had experimented with the recipe for four years until he found the perfect combination: a boneless chicken breast, seasoned to perfection, hand-breaded and served on a toasted bun with butter and dill. pickles called it chick-fil-a the last letter stood for grade a, the highest rated chicken available at the time, many Americans considered the chicken sandwich strange as they were more interested in a hamburger, on average they ate 50 pounds of beef a year, but when they tried Kruit's chicken sandwich got hooked, it soon outsold their burgers and the good brothers sold it for a royalty fee.

Even McDonald's considered selling them, but lost interest while the Houston Astrodome signed a deal to sell them from then on. took off within weeks, another 50 restaurants joined. Truett was on his way to rebuilding his empire, but he still wasn't happy that the restaurants weren't following his instructions or maintaining quality. Fortunately, his sister Gladys suggested an idea that would involve taking more risks. and potentially a bigger reward that challenges the status quo 33 years before Chic-fil-a became the third-largest restaurant chain in the United States. A Chic-Fi-A restaurant needs to open, Gladys noted at the time she ran a gift shop in Greenbrier. mall, and inside there was a 384-square-foot vacancy, the perfect size for Truett to start small, while Gladys convinced Truett to apply for a lease.

He struggled to even be considered his chicken sandwich in the early days. The restaurant in a shopping center was seen as strange. The developers were hesitant about the idea of ​​having a tea shop at Sears and a coffee counter at Woolworths and thought fast food would be a smoky mess, not someone who would give up. True, he convinced the developers to give him a chance in 1967, the first chick. The Fil-a restaurant opened within the first week, the business began to turn a profit thereafter, dozens more opened inside shopping center food courts, a first in the fast food industry, but Truitt did not He still celebrated it, he discovered that the business can generate greater profits.

Outside of food courts, more than two decades later, he opened Chic-Fi-A's first independent restaurant on North Druid Hills Road in Atlanta. While it was difficult to go from renting space to purchasing land and constructing buildings, the business experienced steady growth, but that was not the case. touch a single dollar until there were more than 10 locations His insistence on being cautious and avoiding further debt paid off in 1993 Truett opened his 500th Chic-Fi-A restaurant pushing the business to compete with KFC and other fast food chains and In 2006, sales exceeded two billion dollars. Today, Chick-Fil-A is the third largest restaurant chain in America, earning the Kathy family a fortune of $11 billion. to Wendy's Burger King, Taco Bell and Metro in just one year and although it remains closed on Sundays and loses a billion dollars a year its sales per store are higher than those of any other chain now competitors are taking note, including one which rejected a partnership in the early days McDonald's franchise owners recently signed a joint letter urging the company to add a Southern-style chicken sandwich to its menu, but along with Chick-fil-a's secret recipe, The company's unmatched customer service has helped them outperform their competitors for years.

In an interview, Truett shared one of his secrets to success. I think you have to have tremendous faith in what you want. To do, you must be determined to achieve it no matter the circumstances of the last 60 years, no matter the ups and downs. I have learned that the first thing to do is please the customer and they will come back. This is the story. how a c student who faced a series of tragedies turned his mother's southern fried chicken recipe into an $11 billion fortune for more inspiring stories and advice from today's most successful leaders. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel.