Is Chick-Fil-A Family-Owned? Here's Who Actually Runs It In 2026

A truly huge family-owned business is a rare thing in the world of 2026, but Chick-fil-A is not a normal chain. The almost 60-year-old restaurant established itself as the third-largest fast food chain by sales volume, behind only McDonald's and Starbucks. Once a regional chain, it became a consistent success story in the restaurant business. And the Cathy family has been in charge the whole time.

When Chick-fil-A says the family is in charge, that's what it means. Four members of the Cathy family currently hold major leadership positions at the company. Former CEO Dan Cathy is still chairman, Donald M. Cathy is executive vice president, and Trudy Cathy White is the brand ambassador. The current CEO is Andrew Truett Cathy, only the third person to run the company, and the grandson of Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy.

Not every leadership position at Chick-fil-A is filled by a Cathy. The current President is Susannah Frost. However, the business is still completely owned by the family. Because it's a private business the exact details of the ownership structure beyond that remain a secret. Local Chick-fil-A restaurants also have unique ownership structure. While it franchises locations like many other fast food chains, it retains much more control than normal. Most fast food franchisees are expected to pay for, and own, the physical business and inventory, but Chick-fil-A owns all of its locations directly. Franchise "owners" just pay for the right to operate them. That results in much lower up front costs to franchisees, which can also send more money back to the company.

The Cathy family's ownership of Chick-fil-A started with founder S. Truett Cathy in 1967. He was born during the Great Depression and had started working early to support his family. At the age of 8, he sold bottles of Coca-Cola. Cathy later served in the military and then launched a restaurant named The Dwarf Grill in the Georgia town of Hapeville in 1946. While operating that business he came up with the pressure-cooked fried chicken recipe that would define Chick-fil-A. At the time it was the first large-scale fast food chicken sandwich. He opened the first location in the Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta, and for the first two decades of its existence, Chick-fil-A was primarily located in malls. Its first freestanding location didn't open until 1986. It continued to grow, and by 2001 Chick-fil-A was opening its 1,000th location.

Truett Cathy remained CEO until 2013, but his son Dan took over as President in 2001, and mostly ran the chain during the elder Cathy's later years. In addition to being executive vice president, his other son Donald (nicknamed "Bubba"), runs the Dwarf House division of Chick-fil-A, which still operates as a sit down concept in a few locations in Georgia, and the Chick-fil-A spinoff Truett's Grill restaurants that offer unique items beyond traditional Chick-fil-A offerings. The Cathy family now runs a business that employs more than 200,000 people across 3,280 locations and counting. Not too bad for a little family-owned business from Georgia.