Hit up the Happy Valley Chick-fil-A while you still can before it closes for renovations
Those in Happy Valley hoping to get their fill of Chick-fil-A before it closes for the summer as it undergoes renovations have less than a week to do so.
The only Chick-fil-A in Centre County, located at 1938 N. Atherton St., will close at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 16, the fast food chain announced on its Facebook page. It will remain closed as construction takes place, which is expected to last for about 12 weeks. The company said on Facebook it would post photos during the process.
Pam Robb, chair of the Patton Township Supervisors, said in an email the township is looking forward to the renovation “to help resolve the traffic congestion of the past and present.”
“We’ll continue to monitor and work with Chick fil-A to ensure a successful transition and safe environment for our Patton Township community and others,” Robb said.
The busy location currently has a drive-thru, which often sees a backlog of traffic spill out onto North Atherton, creating safety concerns and a congested roadway. To address these issues, the company did a traffic study last summer and determined that they needed to increase the ability to stack cars on site and accommodate no less than 24 cars in its drive-through queue, which is from the order point to the parking lot entrance.
The Patton Township supervisors later approved Chick-fil-A’s proposal to have a dual lane drive-through as well as a face-to-face ordering canopy. Instead of one person placing an order at one speaker box, there will be two speaker boxes. During high volume times, four to six Chick-fil-A employees can also be outside taking orders with iPads.
During a December 2021 Patton Township meeting, Doug Wolfe, of Chick-fil-A Corporate, said each year, Chick-fil-A does about 15-20 “reinvestment projects.” The North Atherton Street location was chosen due to its “high volume and need for additional ordering capacity and production capacity,” he said.
“We’ve also heard the concern from the community. We understand the safety concerns that we have at this location and a lot of that has gone into the design that we have, and really kind of drives some of the reasons why we’ll be requesting variances to be able to execute our primary strategy for this reinvestment plan,” Wolfe said.
Previously, Wolfe said construction is expected to take place in three phases: site improvements (adding the second drive-through lane and increasing ordering capacity), kitchen capacity improvements (geared to increasing production capacity and speed of service) and brand image refresh (updating interior finishes, seating and signage).
