Chick-fil-A free breakfast: Still time to get yours

Chick-fil-A is running an intriguing promotion this week: Make a reservation online and get a free breakfast entrée. There are up to nine entrées available, depending on the particular restaurant: from its classic chicken biscuit to Chick-n-Minis (think chicken nuggets) to the sausage breakfast burrito.

You not only book a restaurant and date, you book a time slot as well from 6:30 to 10:30 a.m. Click here to check on what's available in your area.

The promotion launched a week ago Monday, but there are still reservations to be had. Indeed, depending on the city, there are lots of openings available. It’s one way to gauge how popular the mostly mall-based chain is in the nation’s 10 most populous metropolitan areas.

In America’s biggest metro, New York, the promotion has scarcely had an impact. That’s not surprising. The 39-state, 1,565-plus restaurant chain doesn’t have a restaurant in the Big Apple. The closest restaurants are in New Jersey and there are only two of them. Even there, the appetite for the Chick-fil-A chicken breakfast burrito seems limited. As of late Tuesday afternoon, there were still an average 1,853 reservations available.

Contrast that with No. 9 Atlanta, Chick-fil-A’s hometown. The chain’s website displays 10 restaurants (as it does for most major metro areas). Six of those Atlanta area restaurants have no remaining reservations available. The average for all 10 locations: 515 reservations – the lowest average of any of the 10 largest metro areas.

Which other big metro has a hankering for spicy chicken biscuits; chicken, egg, and cheese bagels; or the chain’s new multigrain oatmeal breakfast?

It’s not a southern city, it’s America’s No. 2 metro area, Los Angeles. The average reservations left among the 10 restaurants listed on its website is 956.

Not far behind is the No. 4 metro, Dallas: an average 979 reservations remaining at its 10 area Chick-fil-As, followed by No. 6 Houston (1,041), No. 7 Washington, D.C. (1,124), and No. 8 Miami (1,233).

So which large metros aren’t pouncing on the promotion? No. 3 Chicago, which has only three restaurants (1,608 reservations), and No. 5 Philadelphia, home of the Philly cheese steak (1,803).

Then there’s No. 10 Boston, whose residents may have never heard of Chick-fil-A. Punch in the city and the website apologizes: “Sorry, but there are no Chick-fil-A® restaurants within 100 miles of your search.”