Business Community
Chick-fil-A considering new location at current site of Olympic Drive Chevron station
Gig Harbor will have its first Chick-fil-A restaurant – and one fewer gas station/mini-mart in the busy Pt. Fosdick Drive and Olympic Drive neighborhood – if plans that the Atlanta-based chicken sandwich giant is discussing with the city of Gig Harbor come to fruition.
Chick-fil-A’s vision includes razing the decades-old Chevron station at 5115 Olympic Drive. In its place would rise a 2,631-square-foot fast food restaurant with two lanes for drive-through ordering but no indoor seating. The store would be open from 5:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day except Sunday.
Chick-fil-A proposes demolishing the Chevron on Olympic Drive and building a restaurant on the location. Photo by Ted Kenney
The new business would provide 46 patio seats and 52 parking spaces, according to a preliminary site plan.
“Customers may place orders in the drive-through via digital menu boards with speakers or directly through employees with handheld computer pads and portable receipt printers” who approach the cars, the project narrative filed with the city of Gig Harbor states.
“The operations team utilize a drive-through door with a built-in pickup window, as well as employees acting as food runners who serve guests within designated areas in or around the drive-through lanes.”
Current property owners
The chicken chain first approached city officials last October through its project and construction management consultants, requesting a pre-application conference to discuss requirements for opening a “New Drive-Thru Only (DTO), quick service restaurant” at the site.
“This request for a pre-application meeting is being submitted by 4G Development & Consulting, Inc, on behalf of the applicant who wishes to remain anonymous currently,” its project narrative stated.
The conference application notes that the owner of 5115 Olympic Drive is Sall Enterprises IV Inc. According to Pierce County property records, that company bought the 1.69-acre parcel in 2019 for $2.3 million. Washington Secretary of State records identify the firm’s governors as Dev Sall, Kewal Singh and Jagdish Kaur.
The location of the Chevron, and proposed Chick-fil-A, at the corner of Olympic Drive and 32nd Avenue. Map from application filed with city of Gig Harbor
The trio are also listed as governors of a company called Sall Enterprises Inc. In 2017, that firm paid $3.1 million to buy property at the intersection of Point Fosdick Drive and Olympic Drive that is home to a Sinclair gas station.
A Chevron station employee identified Dev Sall, but not the other two men, as the owner of both gas stations. Sall did not respond to a request for comment.
Identifying Chick-fil-A as applicant
According to a memo in the city’s project file from Senior Planner Jeremy Hammar, a restaurant is allowed under the site’s B-2 zoning. However, a drive-through is a conditional use that would necessitate a hearing before the Gig Harbor Hearing Examiner.
In April 2025, the applicant’s transportation planning and design consultants, TENW, submitted a Trip Generation and Traffic Scoping Memo that for the first time identified the would-be restaurateur as Chick-fil-A.
The memo is cc’d to “Steve Schwartz, Chick-fil-A” who is identified on LinkedIn as the company’s senior principal development lead, based in Littleton, Colorado.
The memo included preliminary traffic impact projections based on an earlier study at a Bellevue drive-through-only Chick-fil-A. It proposed a forthcoming “Chick-fil-A Hwy 16 & Olympic Dr Level II traffic study” to be submitted to the city, looking at the traffic impact of the proposed Gig Harbor location, including its effects on nearby roadways including the intersections of Olympic Drive with 56th Street, 32nd Avenue, Point Fosdick Drive and Highway 16.
The Chick-fil-A on South 19th Street in Tacoma. Photo by Ted Kenney
The memo stated that vehicles would access the proposed Gig Harbor Chick-fil-A via two routes: An existing driveway on Olympic Drive and an existing driveway on 32nd Avenue.
On May 19, the city returned the traffic scoping memo to TENW with questions, corrections and requests for additional information.
‘Still moving forward’
Nathan Lodico, a project manager at 4G Development & Consulting, said his firm as well as TENW are working on meeting these information requests. “The project is still moving forward,” he said.
Lodico said his firm hopes to submit their complete “entitlement package” for the project to the city by the end of July. This would include answers to the city’s questions, the traffic study, a site plan, and documents addressing issues involved in developing the restaurant including grading, utilities, landscaping and irrigation.
While Chick-fil-A development executive Steve Schwartz did not respond to a request for comment, Amanda Calhoun of the company’s PR firm offered the following prepared statement:
“We are always evaluating potential new locations in the hopes of serving existing and new Guests great food with remarkable service. While we hope to bring new restaurants to the Gig Harbor community in the future, we do not currently have any locations to confirm.”
Chick-fil-A sold some $22.7 billion worth of chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, fresh-squeezed lemonade and other products in 2024, and grew by 154 units to a total of 2,730 franchised and company-operated outlets, according to a report in trade journal Franchise Times.
Other Pierce County locations
The chain’s first Tacoma restaurant opened near the Tacoma Mall in 2015, followed by a store on South 19th Street across from Tacoma Community College and another in Lakewood.
While Chick-fil-A’s chicken dishes attract an enthusiastic – some would say cult-like – following, the company has come under criticism, and sparked protests, for donating millions of dollars to groups that oppose same-sex marriage and for statements against gay marriage made by its founder and by its chief operating officer.
In 2019 the chain reportedly ended contributions to the groups opposing gay marriage and stated it would focus future giving in three areas: Hunger, homelessness and education.
The chain is owned by the billionaire evangelical Cathy family, and its stores closing on Sundays, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day are viewed as signs of their Southern Baptist influence.
The Chick-fil-A on South 19th Street in Tacoma. Photo by Ted Kenney