Chick-fil-A First 100 Event!

The Chick-fil-a opening was SOOO much fun. I had been eating at Chick-fil-a a few weeks before with my sister and my friend Heather Lacy (who is a Chick-fil-a addict) and she started talking about how she had gone to one of these grand opening events a few weeks before. As she was telling us about it we all agreed that it sounded like so much fun and that we should go the next one in Georgia, which just happened to be my birthday week. Here is how it works. You arrive at the Chickfila by 6am the morning before the grand opening. They give everyone a raffle ticket and draw 100 names. Those 100 people win the grand prize of free Chickfila for a year....52 free meals. They then draw 10 alternates who move up if any of the 100 leave and then from those alternates left they draw 1 name to win 52 free meals. The trick is, to claim your prize you must stay in the parking lot for 24 hours (until the store opens the next morning). There were 5 of us, which increased our chances of winning. I was the first one called at #63 and I was inside nervous and lonely as they got up into the 90's and nobody else from our group had been called. Finally, Heather (with last minute flare) was called at 97 and then Lauren was called as alternate 108. Lauren ended up being 1 out of only 4 alternates left by the next morning and won the raffle for the free 52, giving us 3 winners and 30ish free meals each. So, for 24 hours we stayed in the parking lot, played games, ate lots of free chicken, sweated to death, played more games, read some books, played more games, sweated some more and slept on the concrete in tents until 4:30ish the next morning.

Here is a picture of our set-up.

Some people are apparently Chick-fil-a Grand Opening pros and have very elaborate set-ups with generators, projectors, video games and even cots, but I think we did pretty good for our first time. The pop-up tent was a life saver! That and we got the money spot in the lot that was behind a high wall with tall trees on the other side and we had a good bit of shade the first half of the day. Some people were in spots with full sun all day and no hope of shade.

A picture of one of the many silly games they had us play. Many of them yielded prizes non of us were interested in (like cheesecake....who wants cheesecake when you have been eating fried chicken all day and sitting in the 100 degree heat?) but were still fun anyway. We were supposed to slide an oreo off our forehead and into our mouths. Lauren was successful, but the only place I slid it too was on the ground.

Here is us the next morning, a little worse for the wear, but lots of free Chicken richer. (not pictured due to no desire to be seen in her condition- Heather Lacy)

This is my I'm in an oversized t-shirt and silly hat, but I just won free chicken face!

Here is us with our spoils!

It really was a lot of fun! We have already looked to see if there are any more close by in the near future. Some of these people are chick-fil-a opening junkies and seem to follow these events all over the country. A couple beside us had attended over 10 of these events. We were even asked by someone if we were going to the one in Texas. I don't think driving to Texas for free Chick-fil-a is very cost efficient, but maybe.....Birmingham?