Ross School of Business alumna Joyce Mueller is returning to her roots. Through high school and college, she worked at a Chick-fil-A in Marietta, Georgia. Now she’s the owner-operator of the chain’s first location in Ann Arbor. | J. Adrian Wylie
Since her last job as a marketing executive a year ago, Joyce Mueller has been working as a part-time team member at Chick-fil-A in Taylor, she says, “because anything I ask my team to do—clean the bathrooms, fry the chicken, clean up, whatever—I want to say I’ve absolutely done that. I know how to do it. I’m not above doing it. I’m good with anything. I like to get my hands dirty.”
The Ross School of Business alumna started the process of becoming an owner-operator for the first Ann Arbor franchise of the Georgia-based fast food chain in 2017. It’s now open on the rebuilt Washtenaw Ave. site of the Denny’s that closed in 2022.
Related: Closings May 2022
A fourth-generation U-M grad originally from Grosse Ile, Mueller moved to the Atlanta area as a teen to follow her father’s career at Ford. Her first job, at a new Chick-fil-A in Marietta, lasted through high school and college and provided scholarship money.
“I got those opportunities as a fifteen-year-old working in fast food to learn accounting, to learn inventory management, to order the truck, to count down the drawers, to become a crew leader and lead people,” she recalls.
Returning to Michigan for her MBA program, she met her eventual husband and settled locally. Along with two college-age daughters, they live in Pittsfield Township.
“I’m here for the long haul,” she says. “This is my only job. This is my career, and I’m really passionate about it, passionate about the growth and the opportunities, and passionate about building that welcoming environment.”
She lists three skill sets as key to her new role: accounting, marketing, and leadership. “One of the things I really loved about the Ross School of Business is they focused on ‘Who are you as a leader?’” she says. For her staff of about eighty (including many high schoolers like she was), she’s starting with a relatively flat organizational structure, aiming to promote from within and align bonus incentives behind the core concerns of “great food, great customer service.”
The family-owned company started in 1967 and now boasts over 3,000 locations. Its signature fried chicken sandwich and waffle potato fries are mainstays, but the menu spans several categories and dietary preferences. “The Michigan market loves our mac and cheese,” Mueller says. “So, lots of good stick-to-your-ribs kind of food, but also healthy food.” Examples of the latter include salads, a berry granola parfait with organic yogurt, chicken tortilla soup with beans and vegetables, and a Southwest veggie flaxseed wrap.
The only freestanding Michigan Chick-fil-A without a drive-thru, it has eighteen spots labelled for curbside pickup, “so we’re telling customers, stay in your car, stay warm, do a conference call, do your email. We’ll bring it to you as soon as it’s ready,” Mueller says. “If a car comes in and checks in on the mobile app, we can see basically where they are in the parking lot and just run it right out to them.”
She describes the workflow as “a hybrid model” of made-to-order and at-the-ready, depending on the item and its ordering volume. In addition to an initial $25,000 donation to Food Gatherers, they’re participating in a program that redirects surplus food to the needy. For employees, scholarship opportunities range from $1,000 to a possible $25,000.
Their corporate purpose starts with glorifying God, and they’re famously never open on Sundays. “Faith-forward is just a way to do business well,” Mueller says. “Caring is a big part of it, but also just operating with integrity. So the people I hire, I expect that of them, but I tell them, I’m going to treat you fairly. We’re going to have a lot of open dialogue. This is going to be a good, psychologically safe place to work.”
Past charitable endeavors prompted criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates for funding causes seen as hostile to their rights. The company announced in 2012 it would “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”
Mueller has heard the skepticism and has a relentlessly positive response at the ready.
“Chick-fil-A is a learning organization,” she says. “We’re all better together. It’s embracing that patchwork of everybody from different lifestyles, different ethnicities, different religions and all of those things—that’s certainly my passion. That’s why I’ve lived in Ann Arbor for twenty-five years. All of the diversity, I think, is part of what makes Ann Arbor great. So yeah, everyone is welcome at our community table. Everyone’s welcome in our team.”
Chick-fil-A, 3310 Washtenaw Ave. (734) 998–1001. Mon.–Thurs. 6:30 a.m.–10 p.m., Fri. & Sat. 6:30 a.m.–11 p.m. Closed Sun. chick-fil-a.com/locations/mi/ann-arbor-washtenaw-mi
Got a retail or restaurant change? Email [email protected].