2 days Ago
The Warrenville resident's original assessment of Chick-fil-A was fairly simple: "I liked the people, and they treated me really, really well here." Debra Robinson, a member of St. John Baptist Church, came on board in August 1991, when the restaurant was in the now-demolished Aiken Mall .
She's still on deck more than three decades later, working a couple of blocks away on Eastgate Drive with such neighbors as Publix, Goodyear Auto Service and Pelican's Snoballs. Customer service is her speciality, and over the decades, duties have ranged from working in the kitchen ("I did biscuits") and operating the cash register to wiping down tables and pouring drinks for a co-worker who may have his or her hands full at the moment. "I never met a customer that I didn't like," she said.
She's seen her fair share of the world, as the Texas native and her husband, Freddie Robinson, first met while he was at Dyess Air Force Base , near Abilene, Texas, and their marriage led them over the years to set up households in Guam and North Dakota before they settled in Aiken County. Chick-fil-A holds dad, daughter event She's now a fixture at the restaurant owned and operated by Tom Johnson, who hired her at a point in time when the Soviet Union was in its final few months, Gov. Carroll Campbell had recruited BMW to open up shop in South Carolina and Fred Cavanaugh was succeeding H.
Odell Weeks as Aiken's mayor. Ashley Lynn McDaniel, marketing director of Aiken's Chick-fil-A, is among Robinson's admirers. "When she first started her journey with us, she told me the story that she was just sitting at the mall and kind of watching to see if everybody was happy, and just really loved our environment, so she applied, and she's been here ever since," McDaniel said.
"I started here back in 2010, and she was one of the first people to greet me, and she showed me the ropes, got me kind of acclimated to Southern hospitality, because I started at Chick-fil-A in Colorado...
and she's just been a mentor to so many of us — always there to lend an ear, always there to pray for us, with us." Co-worker Shelby Hewitt noted that Robinson is part of the morning crew. "She's always here at opening.
Hit or miss, sleet or snow, she's here," she said. "She's taught me a lot of balance: 'Do what you can. You can't do it all.
' Team stuff." Residents show their support for fast food chain on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day Robinson's home team, over the decades, has come to include "three kids and seven grandkids," since she and her favorite airman tied the knot in 1984. McDaniel said the end result has been a huge asset for the business.
"She is our hospitality. She knows many people in the community. She's a great family woman, a great church woman.
She's got grandkids, a husband, beautiful children — of course, they're grown — and she takes care of them. She recently added twin grandbabies, which was very exciting for us all, to follow that journey with her." Co-worker Gigi Terry noted that Robinson is a major part of the team in terms of making a solid first impression.
"Every single day, when I walk into the door, she's always, 'Hey girl, how are you?,'" Terry said. "It's super-important, having her at the register, because she's the first person people see, and she does a good job of doing that — greeting everybody as soon as they walk in the door. She's just a big ray of sunshine for us, especially in the mornings.
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