On January 22nd, Portland’s first free-standing Chick-fil-A restaurant opened in the Gateway district across from Mall 205. The store is unique in several ways from the other locations in the outer Portland area. It has a larger kitchen than most stores, a kids’ play area less often included in new facilities, and no drive-through window. Instead of hosting lines of cars, the fast food destination will serve guests with a digitized version of a drive-in model, allowing customers to park and order via a mobile app, with meals brought to the vehicle. First-time franchise operator Austin Morrow has worked toward this moment since age sixteen, learning all he can about building an inclusive, family-oriented establishment.
For the last 12 years, Morrow has dedicated his career to Chick-fil-A, with the last four spent in the Leadership Development program. That helped in the competitive process to become an operator. In this franchise model, the company owns the restaurant building and equipment, but operators control the local business. “I have 100% flexibility. I rent the space from Chick-fil-A, but I am an independent business owner, and all the staff work in my organization here. I have direct influence on how I give back to the community, how I serve my team, and how I can offer opportunities for my team,” explained Morrow.
Morrow moved to the area last September, but had visited before when considering the opportunity. “When I was looking at coming to Portland, I went down [to the Clackamas location] and met with Brian Davis, the operator there. Just like me, he’s from the south, and he moved his family up here,” said Morrow. What he found was that most people did not have direct experience with the company on the West Coast, which allowed operators to shape the experience in a meaningful way. “In the south, Chick-fil-A is everywhere, so to be able to come to a community where it might be that first bite… there’s something special about when you’re sharing that first impression.”
Unlike the auto-focused Clackamas store, this location will need to serve customers arriving in a variety of ways. “I think we’re going to be pretty foot traffic heavy,” said Morrow. “We have a lot of people who walk or use public transportation. Even my team members live really local in the community and walk here to work, so I think we will be a high foot traffic area.” Additionally, the city’s building code did not allow them to build a standard fast-food restaurant targeting people in vehicles. The Portland City Council voted in 2018 to prohibit new drive-through construction within commercial zones. Although this project is a near-complete renovation of an existing building, the structure never included a drive-through service window, which prevents it from qualifying for a prior-existence exemption. This project dates back to May 2022, when the national fast food chain explored development at 9950 SE Stark Street, opting to renovate the original structure to maintain its nonconforming use of the existing site for food service. The 1984-era structure previously hosted Rax Roast Beef, Tony Roma’s, and Hooters restaurants before converting to Mystic Gentlemen’s Club and later Venue Gentlemen’s Club.
Although they have improved pedestrian infrastructure around the property, the freeway-adjacent location will continue to attract motorists. Without the drive-through option, Morrow and his staff will be creative to meet customer demand. “We have 15 curbside spots where we’ll be offering a similar experience [to other locations] where you don’t have to get out of the car, and we’ll bring the food to you,” said Austin Morrow. “They can order ahead of time, or they could park and then order in the parking spot.” The dedicated and numbered stalls are at the northwest corner of the parking lot, adjacent to the delivery driver entrance. People working with DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub have a dedicated, inside, welcoming space to pick up orders. Delivery apps can make up 10 to 30% of a day’s orders, and having the separated space helps get them on the road faster without imposing on customers in line.
Morrow said that customer experience is paramount to his efforts in Portland, but he also wants to support the nearly 100 employees joining his team. “My mission is to exceed the expectations of my guests and my team members. I want to be a premier employer for the team that’s working here, explained Morrow. At the base level, that is with a paycheck and a meal. “Sometimes we’ll have team members who come in and may not have food at home. This [shift] may be their only opportunity. So I want to make sure that they can have a hot meal for free that day.” Morrow said that he also wants to help his staff beyond their time at Chick-fil-A. “One thing I’m going to offer is I’m offering is a program where they can go to college. If you can work 30 hours a week, that will enable you to be able to go to college and hope for a better future. Because it’s not my hope that someone joins this organization and stays here for the rest of their life.”
In addition to staff support, the organization encourages locations to participate in the Chick-fil-A Shared Table program, donating leftover protein to groups feeding the community. Morrow selected the Highland Christian Center to receive unserved food items that are cooled and ready for storage for use in the church’s meal program at 7600 NE Glisan Street. With this program, community kitchens will receive unused chicken that can be incorporated into other dishes. So recipients will not get the traditional sandwiches and may not know where the protein came from, but the leftover food will go to good use, feeding people with limited access to food. This philosophy of sharing food started even before the doors opened. “We’ve been training here [ahead of opening] so we actually donated a thousand sandwiches within the community, and so we use that as an opportunity to train our team,” said Morrow.
Morrow explained that he is committed to joining the community and improving the area around his store. “I want people to feel that local ownership aspect. We operate under a large brand that says Chick-fil-A, but I want people in the community to feel like this is a local organization.” He expressed how much he appreciates Portland’s cultural and intellectual diversity, noting that people have been far more welcoming than he anticipated. “It’s my hope that when you come into my restaurant, you’re going to see through my team members, all different backgrounds, all different walks of life. And it’s my hope that we can create a culture in our community that everyone is welcome in this restaurant,” said Morrow. Starting today, the Chick-fil-A Mall 205 location will open from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. They anticipate significant demand during the first few days and recommend people consider parking in the Mall 205 parking lot and crossing SE Washington Street if the main parking lot is full.
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