The owner of a Chick-fil-A franchise in Rocky Mount has reached a milestone after 25 years of doing business locally.
At 16 years old, Bill Lehnes went to work at a Chick-fil-A store.
“It’s pretty much all I’ve ever done,” said the 48-year-old current owner of the restaurant at Cobb Corners shopping center. “I worked at a Chick-fil-A through high school and college back in South Carolina, and then when I got out of college, I tried to get my own store.”
In 1986, he opened his first restaurant in Rocky Mount, one of the first 26 stores to open in the first phase of the development Golden East Crossing mall.
The company had given him the option of opening there or in the older Wilson Mall.
“I took Rocky Mount, knowing the mall was going to be newer and bigger (than Wilson),” Lehnes said.