By Elle Wood

MILFORD—Residents will soon be able to “Eat Mor Chikin” with the updates being made to the Milford Chick-Fil-A.

The restaurant will be upgrading their drive-thru lane with two full-service lanes. The current drive-thru starts with two lanes, but merges into one after the customers take their orders.

The proposal was presented at the Board of Adjustments meeting on March 14.

“The applicant is proposing to modify the drive-thru for the existing Chick-Fil-A by installing a bypass lane along the south and west side of the fast-food establishment which would eliminate some parking spaces within the shopping center,” said Rob Peirce, the city’s planning director.

The new drive-thru plans will eliminate some of the parking in the shopping center. In 2016, Chick-Fil-A had already reduced parking 925 spaces to 877 that was approved, explained Mr. Pierce.

In this proposal, the applicant needs to eliminate seven more spaces to complete the project. The Chick-Fil-A has excess parking to meet the city requirements, but the shopping center itself is in a deficit of spaces, explained Mr. Pierce.

Justin Witters, the senior design engineer of Bowler Engineering represented the Milford Chick-Fil-A at the meeting. He explained the benefits of having an improved drive-thru at that location.

“It will serve as a bypass lane and it will also help reducing stacking back into the rest of the Chick-Fil-A area and potentially the rest of the shopping center drives,” said Mr. Witters.

They performed a traffic study in January 2023. It determined that the new addition would not have a harmful impact on the restaurant as well as other businesses in the shopping center.

“The studies show that as the parking lot is currently set up there are more spaces than are needed with the existing reduction,” said Mr. Witters. “With the proposed reduction of an additional seven spaces, there is still an excess of spaces on the shopping center.”

The board of adjustments approved the proposal unanimously.

“Not doing so (updating the drive-thru) I think would only create a hardship both on the applicant and all of us who wait for sandwiches,” said Nadia Zychal, the vice chair of the Milford Board of Adjustments.

The Milford Chick-Fil-A is in the Milford Plaza off North DuPont Boulevard.

There is not a projected date on when this project will begin or be completed.