Many people find it weird that Chick-fil-A's first restaurant, The Dwarf House, got its start selling burgers, steaks and fried chicken (on the bone). In the late 1950s, airlines began to serve chicken as their in-flight meal. There would be left over pieces because the chicken would have to be cut to fit the tray. Truett Cathy contacted the owners of a food company who supplied Delta Airlines and asked for the extra boneless chicken. Truett then began to experiment. He did consumer research by having customers try his fried, boneless chicken and give suggestions. After tweaking the recipe a couple of years, Truett was using over twenty ingredients and felt like he had a winning combination.
Truett knew that he wanted the chicken on a sandwich because so many of his customers were always in a hurry to go back to work. He found that a hamburger bun was the key. Truett buttered the bun and added two pickles to the sandwich. The next step was to name the product. For several years, it was called the Chicken Steak Sandwich. Truett worked with the words "chicken" and "fillet". After putting them together, he changed "chicken-fillet" to "Chick-fil-A". The "A" stood for Grade A. The name was trademarked in 1963.
"The name Chick-fil-A captures the essence of what we do. It has forced the organization to be very disciplined and stay focused on chicken- the best part of the chicken. After forty years you could make a good argument that it was a stroke of genius- the name and how it has protected our focus."- Steve Robinson, Senior VP of Chick-fil-A.
That's an interesting "behind the name" story.
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