Tom Menino would be smiling about this situation with the Mass. Pike rest areas, if he were still alive to enjoy it.
Buried deep in rules for bidders looking to redevelop the Pike’s 11 service plazas, and seven others, is this provision: All restaurants in the repurposed rest areas will need to open for business seven days a week.
Presumably aimed at ensuring travelers don’t go hungry, the language effectively blocks one of the biggest fast-food chains in the country: Chick-fil-A, after all, stays true to the traditional values of the family that owns it, and keeps its locations closed on Sundays.
A sabbath shutdown wasn’t what riled up Menino back in 2012 when Boston’s then-mayor sent an irate letter to Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy, urging him to back out of plans to open its first shop in the city. Menino was miffed by statements Cathy made against same-sex marriage around the time the chicken-sandwich chain was eyeing a downtown spot just a short stroll across Congress Street from City Hall. He called the idea of a Chick-fil-A shop near the Freedom Trail an insult to same-sex couples who came to Boston to be married. Menino later clarified that he couldn’t deny Chick-fil-A a permit. No, that might run afoul of the free speech rights granted in the US Constitution’s First Amendment. Instead, he would exercise his own First Amendment right to vehemently disagree with Cathy.
Atlanta-based Chick-fil-A remained at bay for almost a decade. In 2022, more than seven years after Menino’s death, the chain finally arrived in Boston. Its signature red-and-white sign was hung on Boylston Street in the Back Bay, becoming a magnet for food-delivery mopeds.
Much has changed since Menino’s much-ballyhooed broadside. Cathy’s son Andrew now rules the roost as CEO, while Chick-fil-A reportedly backed away from donating to certain anti-LGBTQ organizations.
Here’s what hasn’t changed: The family-owned chain still doesn’t open on Sundays. And that means it’s a no-go for highway service plazas in Massachusetts, at least by a strict reading of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s rules for an ambitious, 18-plaza redevelopment that the agency put out to bid this past fall.
The process has been secretive since bids were due in November. MassDOT wouldn’t even say how many bidders submitted proposals, let alone identify them. A deadline for narrowing down the candidates came and went on Dec. 23, when the agency was supposed to announce its short list of bidders. MassDOT still hasn’t said who’s in the running, citing the fact that the procurement process is ongoing.
And the agency doesn’t seem willing to talk publicly about the provision in the bidding rules that says each rest-area food service provider must be open seven days a week. When asked for an interview, a MassDOT spokeswoman simply emailed the language in question.
Chick-fil-A isn’t mentioned by name in MassDOT’s lease and concession agreement for the 18 plazas. But to Fitch Ratings analyst Anne Tricerri, the issue seems clear: Including language in the RFP that every food vendor must stay open seven days a week ensures Chick-fil-A won’t be selected for a Massachusetts service-plaza spot. And Scott Monroe, another infrastructure expert at Fitch, says it’s “pretty unusual” to put this kind of requirement in a public-private partnership bid because it’s generally in the financial interest of rest-stop restaurant operators to stay open all week.
The carefully written bidding language in Massachusetts seems designed to avoid what happened with a Chick-fil-A controversy in New York, where a larger service-plaza redo along the New York Thruway is wrapping up.
The Fitch analysts saw things play out quite differently in that state, where they track tax-exempt bonds issued by Empire State Thruway Partners, an affiliate of Applegreen. In 2021, several months after Blackstone bought a controlling stake in the Irish convenience store operator, Applegreen embarked on a $450 million redevelopment of 27 service areas along the New York Thruway. While the Thruway rules require that all new plaza buildings open for business seven days a week, they do not stipulate that all restaurants within those buildings need to do so.
As a result, Chick-fil-A shops across 10 rebuilt rest areas are closed on Sundays. A year ago, the Sunday closures prompted state assemblymember Tony Simone to file a bill requiring future Thruway contracts to stipulate that all food vendors must open seven days a week. Simone hails from Manhattan, the country’s unofficial media capital, so it’s no surprise his office’s announcement of the bill filing sparked plenty of coverage — plus some outrage from conservative power players such as US Senator Lindsey Graham. (State Senator Michelle Hinchey filed a similar bill in the New York Senate at the time.)
The bill didn’t become law in the last legislative session, so Simone plans to file a new bill in the coming weeks for the new session. It wouldn’t apply to the shops that have already opened, unless the Thruway contract gets renegotiated for some reason.
Simone says New Yorkers shouldn’t go hungry over the holidays when they’re traveling. That’s the main reason he filed the bill — not the political leanings of the chain’s ownership. As the first openly gay state representative from his district on Manhattan’s West Side, though, Simone says he’s no fan of the chain’s record on LGBTQ rights. He adds that Chick-fil-A has every right to take Sundays off, but that doesn’t mean the state should be allowing the shops at Thruway rest areas if they won’t open on a busy day for travel.
When informed about the MassDOT language, Simone said it’s great that other states seem to be using his model to ensure travelers don’t find shuttered restaurants when they pull over for a quick meal.
So what does Chick-fil-A think? It’s hard to know. The chain didn’t return several requests for comment about the seven-days-a-week rule in Massachusetts.
It’s also hard to know who is lining up for the Massachusetts project. MassDOT rebuffed a public records request for that info, “to protect the integrity of the bid process.” At this rate, it seems increasingly unlikely that the agency will disclose anything of significance until a final victor gets picked.
But one thing we do know: When the new operator takes over these rest areas starting in 2026, the chicken sandwiches from a certain Southern fast-food chain won’t be on the menu. And maybe somewhere in the great beyond, a former Boston mayor will break into a knowing grin.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.