Why Do Chick-fil-A Workers Say “My Pleasure”?

Chick-fil-A workers say “my pleasure” because founder Truett Cathy borrowed the phrase from a Ritz-Carlton hotel stay, where an employee’s warm reply made him feel genuinely special. He told the story to franchise owners in 2001, asked every team member to use it, and the phrase became company-wide by 2003.

Honestly, the first time I heard it, I did a double take. I’d just thanked a teenager at a drive-thru window, and he grinned back with the warmest “my pleasure” like I’d asked him a favor he was genuinely thrilled to do. Nobody talks like that at a burger joint. So I looked into this, and the story is way better than I expected.

Turns out, those two little words traveled from a five-star hotel lobby to a chicken sandwich counter. Here’s the thing: it wasn’t some branding committee’s idea. It was one man’s memory of a moment that made him feel special.

Where Did Chick-fil-A’s “My Pleasure” Come From?

The Chick-fil-A my pleasure origin starts with founder S. Truett Cathy, who heard the phrase during a stay at a Ritz-Carlton. Every time he thanked a hotel employee, the response came back warm and sincere: “my pleasure.” It stuck with him.

Cathy was no stranger to hospitality. He’d been serving customers since the 1940s, when he and his brother opened the Dwarf Grill in Hapeville, Georgia, and then launched Chick-fil-A inside an Atlanta mall in 1967. But that hotel moment hit different. As he later put it, “You expect that from a five-star hotel. But to have teenagers in a fast-food atmosphere saying it’s their pleasure to serve, that’s a real head-turner.”

In 2001, at the company’s annual seminar for franchise owners, Cathy told the Ritz-Carlton story to the whole room. Former marketing chief Steve Robinson later wrote about that moment in his book Covert Cows and Chick-fil-A. Cathy wanted his own customers to feel the same way that hotel employee had made him feel. So he asked every owner, team member, and corporate employee to answer “thank you” with “my pleasure.”

The Twist Nobody Expects

Here’s the part that surprised me. The phrase almost didn’t happen. Horst Schulze, the co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton himself, later told a story about consulting with Chick-fil-A and arguing against the phrase. In his view, “my pleasure” was too fancy, too sophisticated for a fast-food crowd. They needed something simpler.

Somebody in the back of the room raised a finger and said, “I like ‘my pleasure.'” That somebody was Truett Cathy, the founder, the owner, the man who’d felt the magic himself. And that, Schulze says, ended the discussion. Even the Ritz-Carlton’s own co-founder couldn’t talk the phrase out of Chick-fil-A.

Do Chick-fil-A Employees Have to Say “My Pleasure”?

Technically, no. Saying “my pleasure” is trained and strongly encouraged at Chick-fil-A, but it isn’t a hard rule written into the employee handbook. Individual operators have autonomy over their restaurant’s culture, and the company has said sincerity matters more than the exact words.

But walk into almost any location and you’ll hear it constantly. It became a company-wide practice in 2003, and the phrase is now part of what Chick-fil-A calls “2nd Mile Service”, the idea of going above and beyond what the customer expects. Some handbooks describe the goal simply: every customer, on every visit, should experience at least one moment of 2nd Mile Service, and a heartfelt “my pleasure” counts.

Just how deep does it go? The company once reported that in 2016 alone, team members said “my pleasure” more than 140 million times. Former employees on Reddit have said the phrase becomes so automatic that they’ll catch themselves saying it at other restaurants, and customers can sometimes spot a Chick-fil-A trained worker by those two words alone.

Why Don’t They Just Say “You’re Welcome”?

Because “my pleasure” does something “you’re welcome” doesn’t. “You’re welcome” says the transaction is done. “My pleasure” says the person was genuinely happy to help. That tiny shift turns a fast-food exchange into a hospitality moment, which is exactly what Cathy wanted.

This wasn’t a one-off quirk either. It fits a whole service philosophy that set the chain apart as it expanded beyond the South. Fresh flowers on tables. Employees walking outside to take drive-thru orders. Higher wages and unusual benefits. The phrase was the audible symbol of a bigger bet: that a chicken chain could win on hospitality, not just speed.

And honestly? It worked. Chick-fil-A consistently tops customer satisfaction rankings in fast food, and the phrase has been parodied, quoted, and meme’d for years. Two words, borrowed from a hotel lobby, did more for the brand than most million-dollar ad campaigns.

Chick-fil-A “My Pleasure” FAQ

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