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We're not chicken about covering this huge story

Stop the presses!!!

Did you hear Chick-fil-A is coming, and it opened its first Chicago-area restaurant along Route 59 in Aurora on Thursday?

Did you hear they have this really cute marketing gimmick where current or future fans of their chicken sandwiches could set up camp in the makeshift tent city to be among the first 100 customers and win a year's supply of chicken or thereabouts?

Oh, that's right. We put a photo of the epic event on our front page that day. It wasn't that we didn't have some misgivings about perhaps being a pawn in Chick-fil-A's marketing strategy, but I'd say we were of a mind that when people travel from out of state to sleep overnight in a fast-food chain's parking lot, that loosely resembles news.

So, Beth Mistretta filed a story that we ran in our Thursday business section to accompany photos by Dan White and a short video on our website by Bev Horne that had a few participants gushing about how much they love Chick-fil-A. We even sent staff writer Justin Kmitch by the restaurant Thursday morning to see how things were going. I thought another story and more photos might be overkill, so I present Kmitch's findings to you in the decidedly low-key presentation of this column.

• By 6 a.m., not only had the 100 winners shown up to claim their certificates, but another 50 regular customers had shown up for some chicken.

• By 10 a.m., more than 1,000 customers were counted.

• Favorite quote from the Chick-fil-A Aurora "operator" Doug Lockwood: "We've gotten a lot of feedback in the last few weeks from people who couldn't wait to get in because it's been years since they've been able to. I had a lady in tears last week, she was so excited."

• Favorite quote from a customer: Sugar Grove resident Melanie Dodge stopped in to grab a Chicken Biscuit Breakfast Burrito on her way to work. "I didn't account for the place being packed. It'll slow down once the buzz wears off."

Indeed. Chick-fil-A, of course, is the new Sonic, which was the new Cold Stone Creamery, which was the new Krispy Kreme, which was the new Coors beer. I'm sure I skipped a few of these cultural phenomena, but they all adhere to the want-what-you-can't-have school of thought.

Krispy Kreme moved to the area a decade or so ago. Every time a new store opened, it was treated as an event of epic proportions, as we were flooded with breathless news releases that the mayor was going to be on hand and other hoo-hah was to ensue. The media hysteria wasn't limited to the metro area; I remember well a newspaper article chastising the rest of the media for being unwitting dupes for the KK marketing machine.

Ditto Sonic. When the chain opened on Kirk Road in Aurora a year or two ago, you'd have thought people around here never had been treated to a hamburger. Sheesh, I drove by the place - on a weekday, in the middle of the afternoon - to see what the fuss was about. They had a guy directing traffic into the parking lot of the nearby Walmart. I was in the fourth or fifth line of cars queuing up just to get in line for the drive-through. Figured the wait was going to be more than an hour, so I left.

So, yeah, I'm curious about Chick-fil-A, probably will stop by in a month or so to see what all the fuss is about. And I also think we'll be scaling back our coverage.

On the other hand, I wonder how many people will camp out when they come to Wheaton in November, if they'll have a thousand customers by 10 a.m...

Stop the presses!!!

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<h2>Stories</h2>

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<li><a href="/story/?id=408284">Chick-fil-A fans flock to Aurora in hopes of a free meal ... or 52 <span class="date">[09/15/10]</span></a></li>

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