Closing for remodeling

The Lake City Chick-fil-A restaurant is closing down at the end of the week as the restaurant will get renovated and upgraded.

The restaurant will close 3 p.m. Friday and remain closed for a few weeks while the renovation work takes place.

Michael Sexton, owner/operator of the Lake City Chick-fil-A, said there is no specific date for when the restaurant is scheduled to re-open.

“We’re just hoping for a good re-opening, hopefully two weeks after that,” he said. “When we do open, however, we’ll open up for one week drive-through only. So our dining room will not be ready. That will be closed for three weeks. It’s just because we’re doing construction on the dining room side of things we, unfortunately, won’t be able to open the entire store.”

Sexton said a lot of the renovation work is going to be beneficial for the eatery’s drive-through for both customers and employees.

“It’s just continuing the evolution of our drive-through business,” he said, noting the interior drive-through work area is being revamped. “We’re basically demolishing that inside drive-through wall and blowing it all the way out to our dining room… We basically creating a ton of work space over there. Work space, storage space and we’re also creating a team member space… Overall it’s just going to help that drive-through grow and thrive, without our team members crawling on top of each other.”

The restaurant opened in June 2013 and Sexton said there have been no previous interior renovations to the drive-through or to make the building larger. The other renovations were adding canopies to drive-through lanes and iPads employees working in the drive-through.

“When you talk about the evolution of the drive-through business, this is just kind of the next step and thing we need to do,” Sexton said, noting the drive-through area will get an electronic door, on the northeastern side of the building. “We’ll actually be able to come in and out and it should flow much better and should be much more efficient.”

Sexton said the planning associated with the renovation project has been in the planning stage for nearly a year.

“It’s long overdue and for my team — very, very anticipated. They’re super excited about it,” he said.

In addition to the renovation work on the eastern side of the building, several other interior changes have been planned.

The building’s playground, which has been closed for the past four years, will be removed. Roughly 20 seats will be added to the dining room. The area will be remodeled, with a lowered ceiling, chandelier, and a community table. Bar seating will also be added to the area to overlook U.S. Highway 90.

Sexton said the restaurant’s dining room area is traditionally very busy and the changes will provide an employee area for staff.

The front counter area is also getting upgrades and renovations.

“We’ll be doing a facelift to the dining room, so the dining room will look a little different — nothing crazy as far as operationally in how the dining room operates, but it will really good,” Sexton said. “We’re changing all the tile, ripping out the front counter and gutting that. The bathrooms will look a little different, they won’t be bigger, unfortunately, but they will be upgraded…”

Sexton said he was happy to have an opportunity to address the needed restaurant upgrades.

“It’s going to look really fresh. It will modernize everything,” he said. “It’s just one of those things that as the years go by, we clean, fix stuff and patch stuff up, but the restaurants just take a beating over the years, so it’s going to be really good to get some of this stuff done, close it down and it’s going to be great.”

While the restaurant is being renovated, Lake City customers will still be able to get their fix. On Monday, the Chick-fil-A mobile food truck which will begin serving from 10 a.m.- 3 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church overflow parking lot on U.S. 90. Then, from 4 p.m.-8 p.m., the truck will be located at the Tractor Supply parking lot on West U.S. 90.

“We’re excited to still be able to have the food truck here to support our Chick-fil-A eaters here in Lake City,” Sexton said. “I’m excited to be able to do that. Our team is excited and hopefully, we’ll still be able to sling some chicken out.”