After Chick-fil-A never reopened following the Brady Commons renovation, MU students have started a movement to bring the franchise back to Columbia.
Sophomore Nick Williams created a Facebook group last weekend, which was originally intended to gain support from friends.
“The majority of students are on Facebook, so it’s a great way to get a message across to people,” Williams said.
After the group’s popularity grew, Williams made the Facebook page, “Chick-fil-A for Mizzou,”, which went from having 150 likes Monday night to 450 likes Tuesday morning. By Thursday, it had more than 1,000 fans.
“It started becoming more serious as more people started posting,” Williams said. “I was excited to see how many people liked it that quickly.”
Through the Facebook group, Williams learned sophomore Jana Lynch sent Chick-fil-A’s corporate headquarters an email this summer inquiring about a future location in Columbia.
“They emailed me back the next day,” she said. “They said there wasn’t enough interest in building, so they weren’t interested in coming right now.”
To prove students’ interest, sophomore Tori Chamberlain came up with the idea to begin petitions to send the company. Chamberlain, Williams and others claimed a table outside the bookstore in the MU Student Center. They collected more than 360 signatures in two hours Tuesday.
“When the majority of people see our sign, their faces just light up, and they sign (the petition),” Williams said.
The group collected more signatures Wednesday and Thursday and will continue to collect signatures for an indefinite amount of time. They plan to send Chick-fil-A a letter along with the signatures.
“We have a school of 30,000, plus residents of Columbia,” Williams said. “We want to show Chick-fil-A there’s enough invested interest.”
Chamberlain said they have not yet contacted Campus Dining Services about getting a location on campus.
“I really like all the places in the student center and the dining halls, but at the same time, I’d like to bring something to campus that’s familiar,” she said. “I don’t think an added restaurant would hurt.”
Although CDS partners with franchises such as Starbucks, Subway and Sunshine Sushi, many of its retailers are branded concepts MU created.
“We are able to control many different factors such as healthy and nutritional options, quality, creativity and flexibility, and this allows us to give our students the food they want,” CDS Marketing Manager Michael Wuest said.
Original CDS retailers are also more cost-efficient, saving MU money on marketing, licensing and franchise and royalty fees.
“We wanted to keep the money on campus so that we can reinvest into the university, whether that is supporting renovations of buildings, new facilities, building bridges or contributing to the general operating fund,” Wuest said.
Before creating its retail locations, CDS surveyed students and created menu items and branded concepts based off students’ ideas and suggestions. Many students said they wanted quality food and not necessarily brands, Wuest said.
CDS feels Mort’s chicken sandwiches, chicken strips and waffle fries, among other menu items, serve as good alternatives to Chick-fil-A in both quality and nutrition.
“If you compare the nutritional information between the two, you will see that our items have better nutritional value,” Wuest said.
Although many of its dining concepts are original, CDS is willing to consider bringing existing franchises to MU.
“We’re totally for students who have a passion about how they want their dining to be,” Wuest said. “If there’s something students are driving for, we’ll definitely look into it.”
