While never having felt any previous urge to dine in Reading, I now find myself trying to secure a table at the Oracle Shopping Centre. Should any Spectator reader wish to join me there over the next week, I can ask Chick-fil-A to make it a table for two.
There we can dine on any number of foodstuffs. We could start with a chicken sandwich and then progress to either eight or 12 chicken nuggets as our main course. Or we could do the same in reverse order, treating the nuggets as an amuse-bouche before the main event. All washed down with one of those sugary, non-alcoholic drinks that cause the locals to get into fights.
If that doesn’t sound like a good night out then you may just have to accept that the war for liberty involves sacrifice. It isn’t all about the admiration of your peers and acceptance speeches at awards ceremonies. Sometimes it involves ordering a chicken tortilla soup with a mac-and-cheese side before making sure you don’t miss the last train out.
Anyone who is lost should know that America’s third-largest restaurant chain opened its first British outlet earlier this month. But after not much more than a week the Oracle Shopping Centre announced that it was not intending to renew Chick-fil-A’s lease past its present six-month trial period. A local paper slightly histrionically claimed that the restaurant’s opening had ‘bitterly divided’ the people of Berkshire. In fact all that happened was that some local gay rights groups including Reading Pride announced that they were going to demonstrate outside the shop some time this week. Right around the time I was hoping to do my cholesterol stress-test at the joint.
For anyone who doesn’t follow the American culture wars very closely, all this might come as a surprise.
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