MOSCOW — Here are two things even Chick-fil-A fans might not know about the franchise’s new Moscow location — the lines are usually short before 10:30 a.m. and the menu at that time of day features breakfast versions of the restaurant’s storied chicken, which are among its most delicious items.

That insight is from Josh Altmeyer, the owner and franchisee of Moscow’s Chick-fil-A, which debuted in March.

If he’s indulging, he’ll choose the Chick-n-Minis — four of the restaurant’s chicken nuggets tucked in small yeast buns, served with strawberry or grape jam on the side.

“Our sweet yeast rolls are like little blankets,” Altmeyer said. “There’s honey butter on top. You get a little bit of crunch from the chicken nugget. It’s sweet and savory.”

When he wants something healthier, he’ll opt for the breakfast bowl with eggs, hash browns and a little cheese and a grilled chicken fillet that’s smaller and marinated differently than those served for lunch and dinner.

As much as Altmeyer enjoys the food at Chick-fil-A (we’ll get to his lunch/dinner picks in just a few paragraphs), it’s the company’s ethics and expertise in developing people that convinced him to make the restaurant his career.

The skills individuals learn, such as how to consistently, quickly produce a high-quality chicken fillet or how to predict how many Waffle Potato Fries a restaurant will need to serve its lunch rush, are ones people can use to prosper in their careers, whether they stay with Chick-fil-A or go somewhere else, Altmeyer said.

“I’ve yet to find a platform more effective than Chick-fil-A at shaping leaders through a life-changing foundation of service, hospitality and intentional communication,” he said.

I talked with Altmeyer about Chick-fil-A’s food, the company’s corporate culture, his work before joining Chick-fil-A and what he’s learned from his dad, Phil Altmeyer, the CEO of Union Gospel Mission in Spokane.

Edited highlights of our conversation are as follows:

ELAINE WILLIAMS: Let’s start with more about the food. What makes Chick-fil-A so good?

JOSH ALTMEYER: The amazing part about Chick-fil-A is we try and keep things really simple. It’s doing all the little things really well. Our chicken sandwich is what we consider one of our hero products, what we’re most known for. We take a fresh ingredient, raw chicken, which most restaurants don’t handle. They’re hand breaded, hand pressed, dipped in an egg wash and put in a cooler. When we cook them, we put them immediately in the fryer. Every detail really matters – how we lay the fillets in the fryer, how long we cook them, the peanut oil we use and how long we hold onto our product. We focus on how we toast our buns and how the pickles are placed on the chicken sandwich.

EW: What’s your favorite Chick-fil-A item for lunch and dinner based solely on flavor?

JA: Our Chick-fil-A sandwich, which is our chicken fillet on a toasted bun with two pickles. I add pepper jack cheese. It adds a slight hint of spice, but you still get that nice juicy chicken with the vinegary taste from the pickles.

EW: What do you select if you want fewer calories?

JA: The grilled nuggets. They have a hint of smokiness. I might have them with sriracha sauce with a side of kale crunch salad. It’s kale, with a little bit of cabbage, apple cider and Dijon mustard dressing and roasted almonds.

EW: Fry sauce is really big in our region. How does Chick-fil-A’s taste?

JA: Ours is called Chick-fil-A sauce. When I think of fry sauce, I think of mayonnaise and ketchup. Ours is unique. Chick-fil-A’s is kind of sweet and smoky with a hint of barbecue. It’s its own thing. An owner came up with the recipe way back in the day. You can buy it at local grocery stores.

EW: Given the popularity of Chick-fil-A’s food, it’s not surprising a number of people aspire to be owners. How difficult is it to be selected as a Chick-fil-A franchisee?

JA: If you look at the numbers, the volume of applicants and the number of restaurants, it’s easier to get into Harvard or Stanford than to be selected as a Chick-fil-A franchisee.

EW: What prompted you to make that a goal?

JA: A friend I met when I worked for a nonprofit was working for a franchisee at Chick-fil-A’s busiest location next door to a high school in Downey, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles in Orange County. The franchisee was helping him see if he wanted to apply to be a franchisee by allowing him to work every job at the restaurant. I was encouraging him. He was doing jobs such as taking out the trash and closing the restaurant at night. But he was like, “You have used food through every part of your life to impact people you love and develop people. I think you should think about Chick-fil-A.”

The franchisee offered me the same opportunity as my friend. He said, “I can teach you to run this business and set you up for success as an owner.” I was working for a construction company in Spokane and visited his restaurant in California. I was expecting we were going to talk about french fries and sandwiches, but I was really blown away. He gave me a tour. It was one of the cleanest kitchens I had ever been in.

EW: But there was something even more profound that resonated with you. What was it?

JA: I asked the general manager what his job was like. He pointed to a woman running the front counter. He told me that when she was hired she was in high school and had no plans to go to college. By then, she was running a shift of 20 to 25 people. She was able to clearly speak about business results, leading with influence and positivity and attending college. Another employee was going to be with Chick-fil-A the rest of their life because they were making an income they could support their family with in Southern California. I was initially like, “I’m not sure about the restaurant world, but I’m for sure about the people and leadership development.”

EW: How did you journey with Chick-fil-A progress?

JA: I accepted the offer of the franchisee and did every job at the restaurant. It was some very long days of just trying to humbly learn I wasn’t as fast as I thought I was. In a year and a half, I moved up to general manager. It was a heavy, heavy deep dive into Chick-fil-A. The owner was given a second location just 2 miles down the road. I led the grand opening for that from design to construction to working with the city council to hiring all the team members to training the staff and launching that store. I felt I had set that owner up with a very large leadership bench. Then I took a job at the north Spokane store while my wife and I waited for an opportunity. I did whatever was needed, sales growth, financial returns for the business and helping run the kitchen.

EW: Once you decided to compete to be a franchisee, how long did it take?

JA: In the first year and a half, it is just interviewing to see if you can apply. After that, you’re applying for specific stores, going against other candidates with fantastic resumes. My wife and I wanted a store in eastern Washington, north Idaho or north central Idaho. So it took about five years altogether. I was working for Chick-fil-A the whole time.

EW: Before you joined Chick-fil-A you were in the not-for-profit sector. What was the name of the nonprofit and what was its work when you were with it?

JA: It was called Church Resource Ministries when I worked there. Now it’s Novo. Its slogan was empowering leaders. They had over 800 international staff around the world on every continent besides Antarctica. It had a number of focuses. It worked in some of the most impoverished communities around the world, helping the poor and marginalized and did traditional missionary work. It also had programs that helped pastors who were experiencing burnout and provided temporary pastors to congregations that were struggling to help them rejuvenate.

EW: What were some of your most significant experiences with the group?

JA: I was the assistant to the president. I got to see what the organization was doing around the world, how he was highly leveraging uniquely called individuals to have a big impact. I got to sit in when he was with a Bedouin tribal leader with his sheep roaming around behind the scenes while we’re having Lebanese coffee. I was also with him when he was with the wealthiest of the wealthy in Singapore, with an Anglican archbishop and his funding crew, and when he talked with judges and administrators in Nigeria.

EW: Let’s shift gears a bit and talk about your dad, Phil Altmeyer, who many of our readers know because he is CEO of Union Gospel Mission. What did you learn from him?

JA: Who he is at work and who he is at home is the same. That firmly rooted in me that character really matters. It doesn’t matter who you are on stage. It matters who you are in person. I’ve always been inspired by his vision and his pursuit for what’s next. He grew what was a men’s shelter with eight staff members in downtown Spokane, to a ministry with locations in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston, serving not just men, but women, including victims of domestic violence and their children. Thousands and thousands of lives have been touched by that ministry because of the ongoing vision he has, not just to be a place people get a meal, but where their lives change and recovery happens. I could tell you countless stories of people like Hells Angels bikers, the toughest looking guys, breaking down as they’re crying about how God changed their life. How they are engaged with their kids’ worlds, where for 20 years they weren’t. When you can see God transform someone to that level, it’s inspiring. I have the blessing of benefiting from his good name and the good name of the Cathy family, who founded Chick-fil-A and t...

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