The Strict Guidelines Chick-Fil-A Employees Allegedly Must Follow When Making Milkshakes

When you think about Chick-fil-A, you may think of a great many things — its delicious chicken sandwiches, refusal to open on Sundays, and that one time the entire state of Vermont had beef with it (explaining why the state has no Chick-fil-A locations) — but you may not think about its milkshakes. It's a chicken restaurant, after all, so its desserts may seem a bit ancillary. (Heck, even Shake Shack isn't really known for its shakes these days.) But they're popular enough that Chick-fil-A employees apparently have the recipes for them drilled into their heads. (Figuratively, anyway.)

Each milkshake recipe has a strict set of proportions that staff have to follow, according to self-proclaimed Chick-fil-A workers on Reddit. Employees allegedly have to pour in enough shake base to reach certain lines inside the cup, and they have to pump in the ingredients and toppings so that each milkshake is just so. Is it fussy? Yes, maybe a little bit. Does that mean we're complaining? Heck no. We just wish its chicken nuggets had the same level of uniformity, with fewer ugly bald patches. (But then again, we can cover those up by dipping them in Chick-fil-A sauce.)

What makes Chick-fil-A milkshakes so special, though? What is it about them that brings the boys (and the girls, and other milkshake lovers out there) to the yard? Well, for one thing, these milkshakes are hand-spun, meaning they're made manually in a cup with a blender rather than produced from a machine. In fact, they were advertised as such when they were introduced all the way back in 2006. That gives them a thicker, richer texture and reminds you that your treat is being made by people (who can't stand when you ask for large milkshakes, which Chick-fil-A no longer offers) rather than machines. 

And those people who make your milkshakes come prepared. Take this professed rookie Chick-fil-A employee who asked for a bit of study help on the r/ChickFilAWorkers subreddit. "I'm a new hire and trying to memorize how to make all the milkshakes and specialty drinks," they said. "Tell me a drink, and I'll try to tell you how to make it." It was a pretty wholesome exercise: Redditors peppered the post with orders, and the employee would either relay how to make it — they said an Oreo milkshake entails "two things of the Oreo crumbles, shake base until the red line, ice cream, put the lid, mix it, put the whipped cream, and then the cherry" — or admit they didn't know, at which point someone else would tell them how. Godspeed, young Chick-fil-A employee.