Bad News For Chick-Fil-A Decaf Coffee Drinkers
On April 1, a user on the Chick-fil-A subreddit shared a picture of a sign informing customers of the discontinuation date of the chain's sunflower multigrain bagel and decaf coffee: April 26 (via Reddit). Furthermore, Chick-fil-A plans to consolidate menu offerings.
"We want to continue providing you the quality food and service you've come to expect," the announcement reads, "so we've had to make hard choices about what we continue to offer on our menu." This comes a month after news broke that Chick-fil-A would be pruning their menu this spring. Context, as given by Today, is that during the pandemic, the industry as a whole has turned to simplifying their menu options so that employees can address the large number of people clogging the drive-thrus. However, Chick-fil-A stays by their story that this and other changes to their menu lineup, like a reduction in chicken nugget options on the kid's menu, are completely unrelated to the industry trend.
The move will put a small amount of people out
In response to the Reddit post, a few commenters joked that they were probably the only one to actually order decaf, or as one put it: "There are dozens of us. Dozens!!!" This observation was corroborated by self-reported Chick-fil-A employees who explained that decaf coffee was burdensome to offer because they would go through the effort of making a pot only for one person to order it in the course of the entire morning. Presumably, the costs of the unsold coffee made this menu option an easy pick when it came time to trim the budget.
Still, as a couple of voices noted, this will not help people who cannot handle caffeine, yet still love coffee. Healthline describes that small portions of the population experience either hypersensitivity to caffeine or even an allergic reaction. The former may manifest as anxiety, insomnia, or a racing heart while the allergy would produce hives, swollen lips, or in extreme cases, anaphylactic shock.
Going forward, fans of Chick-fil-A's breakfast menu will have to do without the morning decaf. The inconvenience of this Chick-fil-A menu change, however, can be remedied by filling a thermos of decaffeinated coffee or tea before dropping by your local restaurant.