Chik-fil-A: Dress like a cow, eat for free
(Read article summary)Chik-fil-A 'Cow Appreciation Day' gives customers a free meal if they come to the restaurant in a cow costume. Customers dressed in a partial cow costume get a free Chik-fil-A entrée.
Friday's the day of the man-eating chicken. Er, the chicken-eating cow? No, the chicken-eating man-cow!
On July 8, the restaurant chain Chik-fil-A is rewarding customers who come dressed “from head to hoof” as cows with a free meal. (Partial costumes get just a free entrée.)
The seventh annual “Cow Appreciation Day” is an extension of Chik-fil-A’s longtime marketing shtick. Since the chain doesn't serve beef, it's jokingly had cows plead with customers to eat chicken instead. In the ads, desperate cows hold up messy, misspelled signs, with messages such as, "Eat mor chikin ." On Friday, the cow’s sign says, “Dress like me. Git free chikin.” Last year, more than 450,000 people dressed up for free food.
The chicken chain doesn't take the one-day costume bargain lightly. There’s a website devoted to the day, with a photo gallery of customers sporting spots, a check-in map that shows which franchises have gotten cattle traffic so far, and an intense, high-end video (see below) of a man sewing a cow costume – fabric rips and sweat drips from the man’s brow as he bites off thread and stitches together his costume. It feels like a video of Eminem inexplicably getting ready to play an NFL game.
