This KC Chick-fil-A is so popular it is temporarily closed for expansion. Again.

Chick-fil-A at Ward Parkway Center shut down for a major remodeling in 2019, one that included a new double lane drive-thru.

Now it’s closed for another update.

The restaurant, at 8551 State Line Road, has been so busy with the added drive-thru lane, it now needs to expand its kitchen to keep up. So it closed May 3 and is scheduled to reopen in early August, or before the back-to-school rush.

“From the catering standpoint we are No. 25 in the chain, isn’t that wild, so the Chick-fil-A design and construction team are going to give us extra room for catering setup and delivery,” said franchisee Forrest Swyden.

When it opened in December 2006, it was the second Chick-fil-A for the metro. The first opened in Olathe in mid-2006.

By 2019, Swyden said, it was the highest-volume Chick-fil-A in the metro with about 4,800 customers a day. The kitchen wasn’t designed to handle that traffic. So it closed for nearly three months to make the kitchen more efficient and add new equipment, remodel the dining room and put in the double lane drive-thru. Now it serves about 5,200 customers a day, on average.

Swyden said a new operator in St. Joseph was just asking him what he focuses on daily.

“I told him we try to keep it pretty simple,” Swyden said. “We want to be quick, accurate and have people leave with a smile.”

This story was originally published May 17, 2023 at 9:19 AM.