On March 31, Chick-fil-A plans to close its longstanding outlet in the food court of Town Center at Cobb in Kennesaw. The locally owned restaurant began to inform employees and customers in recent days, citing deteriorating sales at the beleaguered mall as the primary reason for the closure.
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| Credit - Chick-fil-A |
The mall is currently anchored by JC Penney, Macy's and a Macy's men's/Macy's Furniture Gallery.
An existing freestanding Chick-fil-A that was demolished and rebuilt in 2021 is located a little over a mile from the mall at 830 Barrett Parkway, and is said to be working to find jobs for affected employees from Town Center.
Chick-fil-A and its operators have over the past few years shuttered several other Atlanta area food court locations including those at Northlake Mall in Tucker, North DeKalb Mall near Decatur, Phipps Plaza in Buckhead, CNN Center in Downtown Atlanta, and Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth. The company also closed its restaurants at Valdosta Mall in Valdosta, Peachtree Mall in Columbus, in Great Lakes Mall in the greater Cleveland, Ohio area, and in Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, among others.
The very first Chick-fil-A opened in 1967 at Greenbriar Mall in southwest Atlanta. It closed in 2023. The company last July also closed its location within the food court of The Mall at Stonecrest in Lithonia.
In some cases, however, the company has gotten creative with its food court restaurants and added drive-thru and curbside pickup to augment sluggish mall traffic and make the locations more appealing to drive-by diners. One such food court location to offer these ordering options is at Dalton Mall in Dalton in northwest Georgia.
The Atlanta-based company and its local owner operators continue to operate food court locations in several local malls including North Point Mall (for now) in Alpharetta, Lenox Square in Buckhead, Perimeter Mall in Dunwoody, Mall of Georgia in Buford, and Arbor Place Mall in Douglasville. The one major mall food court the restaurant is absent from and has never been part of is Sugarloaf Mills in Lawrenceville.
Are you surprised to see Chick-fil-A close at Town Center at Cobb? What is your fondest memory of Town Center at Cobb? What would you like to see happen to the mall in the years to come?
Please share your thoughts below.
18 comments:
Town Center is a ghost town now. It can’t last much longer.
Still running strong at Cumberland Mall in North Atlanta! Great food and service, highly reccomend!
I usually ate there when I went to the mall, not much to go for now.
Not surprised! Whatever stores that are left in there do not bring in the clientele you want around. Maybe off of Cleveland Ave…..Someone please just demolish the whole mall and build something great there!
Surprised that CFA is still there. Lots of vacant space at the mall. Understand that the property is owned by several different entities and this may affect the ability to sell, demo and build something.
Town Center should be closed and demolished. The land is certainly more valuable than this half empty, husk of a mall. It had a great run but it's over.
The arcade in this mall has the only Lucky and Wild machine I've seen in the last 20 years. Hope someone can bring this property back to its former glory. Kohan Retail Investments sucks.
I don't give a flying ----.
The stores on Cleveland Ave are very busy, have high foot traffic and do very well. Good for them!
The mall is not half empty. When were you last there?
It will end up like Gwinnett place mall did
It does decent business on the weekends. If news outlets covering its struggles only go to the mall in the middle of a weekday, when Town Center has always been dead (I used to work in that mall 25 years ago, trust me it was a snooze during the day on weekdays), then yeah, it’s going to look like it’s last leg is about to give out. I was pleasantly surprised to see crowds there on the weekend in February. Were they as big as the weekend mall crowds from 25 years ago? No, but it looked like there was still some business going on there
Same thing, it’s packed on the weekends.
The problem is that if they tear it down, they'll replace it with a "mixed-use" development, meaning more apartments and hookah. Continuing Cobb's downward spiral.
So what, it seems there is a CFA on every corner. Sometimes 2.
Don’t hate, participate!
Can we get more CFA closures please?
We used to love to shop at this Rich’s and the original Macy’s when the mall opened and would always enjoy lunch at Chick-fil-a. Chicken Salad Sandwiches and carrot raisin salad with a sweet tea and a piece of cheesecake!! Then a Southern Pecan coffee at Barnie’s and walk the mall!!
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