Lubbock has finally achieved its final form. We aren’t just a city that happily spends forty minutes idling in drive-thru lines for a chicken sandwich; we are now officially the regional storage locker for them. The Lubbock Economic Development Alliance (LEDA) and our city leaders decided that Chick-fil-A—a multi-billion dollar corporation that already has a tighter grip on this town than the dust storms do—desperately needed a $3.55 million “incentive” package to build a warehouse near the airport.
The project was operating under the ultra-stealthy codename “Project Ranger,” because apparently, storing frozen waffle fries requires the same level of operational security as a CIA black site. For the “bargain” price of 14 acres of donated land and some “job creation” cash, we’re getting a whopping 80 jobs. If we keep giving away millions to attract 80 employees at a time, we should have the local economy “fixed” right around the time the sun expands and swallows the Earth.
Mayor McBrayer is predictably thrilled, claiming the company’s “values” align perfectly with Lubbock’s. We can only assume he’s referring to our shared local homophobia or our mutual love for massive taxpayer-funded handouts. Councilwoman Martinez-Garcia called the job count “substantial,” which is a fun way to describe a workforce that could barely fill a single section of the Jones AT&T Stadium.
Starting in May 2026, we’ll begin construction on this 86,000-square-foot “tri-temperature” monument to logistics. It features a cold dock, a freezer, and a guard shack—presumably to keep the desperate Sunday morning crowds from scaling the fences for a rogue spicy deluxe. It’s comforting to know that while our roads continue to disintegrate, our supply of Polynesian sauce will remain strategically fortified.
Is it really an “economic investment” if we’re just paying a company to store the food they’re already selling back to us?
