The new Chick-fil-A hopes to build a bike corral on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Avenue.
Photo: Courtesy of Chick-fil-A

What do you do when Brooklyn’s only Chick-fil-A causes traffic chaos in one of the busiest corners of the district? You build another Chick-fil-A less than a mile away, this time with a dedicated bike zone for delivery workers. “This location is really meant to help offset demand,” says Brandon Hurst, owner-operator of both spots.

The second location, which will open on November 14 at 809 Atlantic Avenue (the former Hot Bird’s housetoday site of the Axel), will include a bicycle corral designed in partnership with the Ministry of Transport. The collaboration between the department and the franchise is a bit like a peace offering for everyone: At the Flatbush location, located directly across from the Barclays Center and next to an equally busy Shake Shack, neighbors have come together. complaints from delivery drivers. driving on the sidewalk, while delivery drivers complain about double-parking cars and other dangerous maneuvers that force them onto the sidewalk. In an effort to solve this particular traffic problem, the DOT created a bike corral in the Flatbush turn lane to help control some of the chaos — a process that Hurst said took three years of going- feedback with community stakeholders. This time, he anticipates.

The DOT says the corral, which would be at the corner of Clinton Avenue and Atlantic, is expected to open in spring 2025. However, the specific design submitted by Chick-fil-A is still awaiting approval. “We don’t just want your typical bike zone,” Hurst says. “It was more about whether we could install a permanent structure that takes into account all seasonal weather conditions and protects drivers.” Hurst says they’re still working on the design with the DOT and are flexible on what the thing looks like, but he hopes to have a roof over it and hard barriers, like planters, to keep cars from ‘enter. (The DOT would pay for the basic initial installation of street paint and planters, but anything beyond that would have to be approved and then paid for by Chick-fil-A.) There will also be a curbside pickup window. side of Clinton Avenue. of the store, something they had to modernize at the Flatbush location. “The hope is that drivers will naturally get off their bikes, leave them there, walk up to the pickup window and grab their food,” Hurst says.

The city’s automobile-centric infrastructure has created a crisis as it increasingly accommodates bicycles, mopeds and electric scooters. Add to that the Wild West of application delivery and you have a real mess. So the corral, while not big news, still feels important. Restaurants and other businesses probably should need to think about how their businesses shape the built environment around them, both for customers and the workers involved.

“Across the city, we have worked to integrate these spaces into street redevelopment with large numbers of bicycle delivery workers, and we will continue to work with local stakeholders to explore potential new locations,” said Will Livingston, DOT spokesperson. Hurst hopes the corral will be a model, much like streeteries, for restaurants to work with the city on these hybrid public-private spaces. (The bike corral would be maintained by Chick-fil-A but open to the public.) I guess we’ll see what it all looks like in the spring.