Fight over Chick-fil-A puts small bakery in crossfire
WALNUT CREEK — Plans for a new Chick-fil-A in a Walnut Creek shopping center have sparked an intense feud between hundreds of neighbors and city planners — and caught one of the last remaining tenants in the crossfire.
Residents and public officials disagree over whether replacing a vacant bank at the Citrus Marketplace shopping center with the chicken fast-food chain will bring new life to the sleepy Walnut Creek plaza or further flood traffic along the busy Ygnacio Valley Road bypass nearby.
Rica Zaharia opened her bakery, European Delights, on the property two years ago, and it has become a beloved hidden gem for finding specialty croissants, brioches, pavlovas, strudels and other internationally inspired pastries baked from scratch.
Surrounded by 10 vacant properties on the lot, the 63-year-old Transylvania native welcomed the idea of a new Chick-fil-A, not for its menu or conservative politics, but for its potential to generate much-needed foot traffic to protect the plaza’s small businesses that she said are “dying every day.” Current tenants in the quiet plaza include a BevMo, Panda Express, a small ice cream parlor, a youth gymnastics center, a post office and a hair salon.
Despite the city’s intention to help attract more businesses to vacant spaces, Zaharia was the only Walnut Creek resident to express support for the initiative.
“Please don’t hate me,” Zaharia said at the May 21 City Council meeting, responding to backlash against her stance on the Chick-fil-A project. “More than any other mall in Walnut Creek, this place feels like a ghost town.”
The approval of Chick-fil-A’s initial permits angered dozens of neighbors in the affluent Woodlands neighborhood up the street, who fiercely argued that the proposed Chick-fil-A, located at 2290 Oak Grove Rd., would increase traffic to already congested and dangerous roads in the city’s northernmost corner, lower property values and attract loiterers and criminals.
Despite concessions from city officials — including prohibiting the 5,363-square-foot Chick-fil-A project from building a drive-thru lane, requiring the restaurant to close at least 10 p.m. and requiring traffic, odor and other mitigation measures — neighbors were still unhappy with the City Council’s May approval.
Today, Zaharia says she has faced the wrath of her neighbors, who have threatened to boycott the restaurant, because she believes a Chick-fil-A would help the entire square as well as her own business, which has been in a financial crisis since the fried chicken war began. She had to cut the bakery’s hours in late July, after the slowest month of sales in her two years running Citrus Marketplace.
“When people start telling me and others how to think and what to do, it’s not acceptable,” Zaharia said in an interview. “I’ve been working 17 hours almost every day – starting at 3 a.m. – for two years. I’m not tired because I do everything out of passion and to make my customers happy, but we can’t find enough people to sell our products to.”
After five hours of intense public testimony — all against Chick-fil-A, with the exception of Zaharia’s comments — the Walnut Creek City Council unanimously rejected the appeal of the restaurant’s draft plans.
City staff said any increase in traffic from the fast-food chain would be minimal, citing their findings that Chick-fil-A would add a few seconds to the average wait time at the busy intersection. The project will now return to the Walnut Creek Design Review Commission for a final review of the proposed architecture, landscaping and signage for the future restaurant.
During public comment on the project, opponents rejected data provided by months of research by Walnut Creek city planners and traffic consultants and demanded that the city deny or at least delay approval of Chick-fil-A’s plans, saying the city was unduly prioritizing fried chicken over their neighborhood’s character and quality of life.
“The City Council has been trying to create a culture, a charm and a small community feel for many years,” said Corban Porter, a lawyer and Woodlands resident who has appealed previous project approvals. “We have submitted 200 signatures from Woodlands residents and nearly 700 surveys, most of which identified health and safety concerns … to allow this project to move forward without doing a thorough study of the neighbourhood is unconscionable.”
While a handful of public speakers raved about European Delights’ delicious pastries and expressed support for similar small businesses, the Woodlands can’t have their pastries and eat them, too.
First, city officials argued that there was no legal reason for Walnut Creek to reject the project outright at its May 21 meeting because it complies with the city’s zoning and general development plans. Second, Chick-fil-A could have been quickly approved months ago if the company had not opted for a conditional use permit to allow takeout food service.
In addition to safety concerns for the many young people who walk and bike to nearby schools, many residents were also concerned about the Atlanta-based chicken restaurant’s conservative reputation and its history of financially supporting anti-LGBTQ groups.
Chick-fil-A “does not reflect the inclusive and diverse values of our community,” said Jessica Hunt, a 40-year Woodlands resident, local small business owner and new president of the Valley Verde Elementary School PTA.
However, it is illegal to refuse approval because of the company’s political or religious positions, and local governments cannot override owners on private market decisions.
Councilman Kevin Wilk also pointed out that Citrus Marketplace is virtually empty. Business slowed significantly after March 2022, when a former Nob Hill grocery store on the property closed, a move blamed on skyrocketing rents. Since then, it has been increasingly difficult to get other businesses to sign commercial leases, according to representatives for DPI Realty, the mall’s owner since 2001.
Wilk lives near Woodlands, but even closer to the traffic that leads to Whole Foods, Walgreens, Rocco’s Pizzeria and other businesses in the Encina Grande shopping center, less than a mile from Citrus Marketplace across Ygnacio Valley Road. After explaining that traffic near his home isn’t as bad as he feared, he rejected the notion that city staff didn’t do their due diligence in reviewing the details and impacts of the upcoming Chick-fil-A development.
“It’s not like businesses are knocking on the doors of malls to justify their presence there,” Wilk said. “We have a mall there now and we need to help it survive.”
Originally published:
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