A new Chick-fil-A restaurant is celebrating its grand opening in Florence.
More than 160 eager customers put up tents and waited for more than 24 hours to get a free one-year supply of Chick-fil-A meals. That's 52 certificates for each person, which totals to more than $26,000 worth of food.
The restaurant opened at 6 a.m. Thursday along Houston Road (see map below).
The special offer went to the first 100 people in line. However, since more than one-hundred showed up, officials decided to take a raffle for the 100 spots.
Waiting in line for a whole day was not as bad as one would think. Those waiting told 9News that as long as they stayed on the restaurant's property, Chick-fil-A provided them with free meals, drinks and even ice cream.
But don't think those who came out for the grand opening were just local. Those in line tell 9News that some people came from Alabama and Georgia thanks to technology.
"Now Chick-fil-A has gone viral. we've gone through facebook, twitter, we have people who travel from all over the country so we hardly have to advertise it anymore," said Chick-fil-A representative Christina Schieffer.
Richard Coster of Edgewood was among the many waiting in line. "We have friends that went to the one in Richmond, Kentucky and they said it was a lot of fun so I came up here and of course you get a free year if you're one of the lucky ones, which i did," said Coster.
Besides helping to fill some empty bellies, the restaurant is also helping the local economy by creating 65 new jobs.
View Larger Map
