The owner of a Chick-Fil-A franchise in Austin, Texas needed to expand his restaurant, which required closing it for a few months. Instead of letting his workers go and wishing them luck finding work elsewhere, he decided to just keep paying them for the four months that the restaurant was under renovation. Wait, really?

Apparently not seeing his employees as disposable cogs in his fried chicken machine, the owner decided that he didn’t want to put his workers’ families through the hardship of being out of work or needing a new job in the interim. Some employees did go work at other local stores during the remodel, and the ones who stayed home had to take some online tests during their paid furlough.

“I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want my group to have to forgo their salaries’,” the franchisee told TV station WMAZ. He also gave employees, whose pay starts at $11 per hour, a $1 per hour raise for sticking with the company.

Now the new, larger store is open: it’s twice as big as the original restaurant, which has been open for 15 years. The store’s grand re-opening required helpers to come over from other stores to handle the crowds.

Texas Chick-fil-A owner paid employees’ salaries during remodeling [WMAZ]

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