March 28, 2011

Table for Five

A few weeks ago I was on Facebook and noticed my local Chick-Fil-A was asking for parents to help them with a "project." I volunteered and was asked to bring my girls with me to test a "VIP Seating" program.
The concept is pretty easy, and pretty nice for parents. You order your food and pay at the drive-through, park and go inside. An employee greets you, takes you to a table and brings you your food. Throughout the meal an employee checks to see if you need refills or any assistance. At the end of the meal someone clears your table.
Eating out is a luxury in my house. It's not something we do very often. When we do opt for fast food, we usually hit the drive-through, because trying to keep track of our kids while ordering gets to be complicated. I appreciated the effort my local Chick-Fil-A is making to provide a stress-free eating environment. Plus, I think this VIP seating would be beneficial for customers other than parents: disabled, the elderly, anyone who might have trouble navigating a crowded restaurant with a tray of food.
Unfortunately, this isn't a national program. It's something my local Chick-Fil-A came up with and is testing. The last time I checked, the program was still in the testing stage, but I'm hoping it launches soon (and catches on at other fast food restaurants!)
(Disclosure: My daughters and I were provided with a complimentary lunch from Chick-Fil-A to test this program. The restaurant was not aware that I have a blog and I was the one who asked if I could post about this program).

6 comments:

MaryAnne said...

That sounds like a really nice service for Chick-Fil-A to add on!

Meg said...

Great idea! Do patrons need to pay for the VIP Seating? I think this would be especially useful if I was by myself and brought the kids out to eat {I'd have lost my mind but that's beside the matter at hand. HA!}. :)

Quadmama said...

No extra fee. My only criticism was that there's no "VIP parking." This wasn't an issue for me, since my girls can walk and are good listeners in parking lots. I saw one mom struggling to get through the congested parking lot with a stroller and a toddler. Overall, though, a great program.

Suzy said...

Very cool! Would love for it to catch on at other Chick-Fil-As ... my kids and I love that place!

Renae said...

My guys love Chick-Fil-A, but the only one near us is at the food court in the mall. I usually order with them at my side, but then try to find a table while we wait for our food to be ready. It would be great if they could do some sort of VIP thing for this setting where someone would bring the food out to you, so you don't have to leave the kids at the table to retrieve the food or try to juggle holding hands and carrying food to the table. You'll have to let us know if they decided to institute the VIP program there. If so, maybe they'd be willing to try other versions in other locations.

MandyE (Twin Trials and Triumphs) said...

That sounds like such a great idea.

There are a couple of sandwich-type restaurants here in town that I really like. You place your order, sit down, and they call your name to come pick up your food. I did it a time or two when the girls were smaller (in infant seats), as I could leave them for a moment to walk and get our tray. But now that they're older, I'm afraid they would scream if I walked away (if they were in their stroller), or there's no way right now they would sit still in a chair while I turned my back!

For now, I've just put those restaurants on the list of where not to go by myself. :)

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