Chick-fil-A founder dies

Associated Press

ATLANTA

Chick-fil-A founder and billionaire S. Truett Cathy rose from poverty, building a privately held restaurant chain that famously closes every Sunday but drew unwanted attention for the Cathy family’s opposition to gay marriage.

Cathy died early Monday at 93.

He opened his first postwar diner in an Atlanta suburb in 1946, and by 1967 he had founded and opened his first Chick-fil-A Inc. restaurant in Atlanta. Over ensuing decades, the chain’s boneless chicken sandwich he is credited with inventing would propel Chick-fil-A expansion to more than 1,800 outlets in 39 states and the nation’s capital. By early 2013, the company says on its website, annual sales topped $5 billion as the chain offered up a taste of the South that went beyond chicken to such offerings as sweet tea, biscuits and gravy.

Under the religiously conservative founder, the chain gained prominence for its Bible Belt observance of Sunday. None of its hundreds of restaurants are open on that day, to allow employees a day of rest.

Its executives often said the chain made as much money in six days as its competitors do in seven.