FOOD NEWS
A Hotel Employee Inspired The Creation Of Chick-fil-A's "My Pleasure"
By Christine Barba
Truett Cathy founded the first Chick-fil-A in 1946 in Hapeville, Georgia, and wanted to stand out from chains that were criticized for how they treated customers. Steve Robinson, author of "Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A," writes about an experience Cathy had at the Ritz-Carlton that impressed him.
After Cathy said "thank you" to a staff member, they said two words that the restaurant owner loved, and those words were "my pleasure" (per Chick-fil-A). Cathy was so taken aback by this response that he requested that everyone who works for him, including in corporate, start using "my pleasure" whenever someone thanks them.
"You expect that from a five-star hotel," Cathy stated, "But to have teenagers in a fast-food atmosphere saying it's their pleasure to serve—that's a real head-turner." Two years later, Cathy's son Daniel Truett Cathy, now Chick-fil-A's CEO, began using "my pleasure" and encouraging others to do the same, which is when it became an unofficial policy to start using the phrase.