Chick-fil-A has filed permits with the Town of West Hartford to open a location in Bishops Corner.

Rendering of Chick-fil-A to be constructed at the former McDonald’s space at 2534 Albany Avenue in Bishops Corner, West Hartford. Town of West Hartford website

By Ronni Newton

The former McDonald’s in Bishops Corner will soon be the home of another popular fast food restaurant now that Chick-fil-A has a lease and has filed permit applications with the Town of West Hartford for build-out of the space.

Property owner Eliot Gersten confirmed to We-Ha.com on Monday that the lease has been signed for the 5,056-square-foot space at 2534 Albany Avenue.

The McDonald’s that had been in the location for many years closed for good on Oct. 31, 2023, and there have been many rumors circulating about what would be opening in the highly visible space.

McDonalds was quickly dismantled after closing at Bishops Corner. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo)

Most new Chick-fil-A stores are built with drive-throughs – including the existing West Hartford location at 509 New Park Avenue, which opened in February 2017. That location was built from scratch what part of the parking lot in front of Home Depot and PJs, and the New Park location, which is in an industrial zone, was eligible to have a drive-through – which was recently renovated – even before the West Hartford Town Council modified its zoning regulations in September 2021.

It does not appear as if there is a request for a drive-through at the Bishops Corner space, nor does the site currently meet the town’s eligibility requirements.

Information about who will be the owner-operator of the Bishops Corner Chick-fil-A, or the timeframe for the opening of the store, was not immediately available.

Another vacancy in the same Bishops Corner shopping center, the former Esquire Cleaners space, is being converted to the fast casual restaurant Just Salad. The signing of that lease was confirmed in June, and a spokesperson for Just Salad told We-Ha.com at the time that the corporate-owned restaurant was “tentatively slated to open at the end of this year.”

Rendering of Chick-fil-A to be constructed at the former McDonald’s space at 2534 Albany Avenue in Bishops Corner, West Hartford. Town of West Hartford website

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