Chick-Felays and Chick-fil-A may sound similar and both serve chicken as their main dishes, but the similarities end there, something Chick-Felays founder and CEO Nabeel Khan has been trying in earnest to point out.

“We had one guy come into one of our restaurants, ordered his food, and then refused it, asking us how we could be so discriminating,” said Khan, recounting a string of such encounters between customers and employees at Chick-Felays’ four locations in southern Ontario. “We had no idea what he was talking about. He said, ‘This is garbage,’ and walked out.”

Khan says it was only several weeks later, after a few more visits from enraged customers, that he learned the president and COO of U.S. chain Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, had made public statements in June and July declaring his opposition to same-sex marriage, sparking a firestorm of controversy south of the border.

Khan then realized customers were mistakenly linking his two-year-old chain to the American company. He’s been in damage control mode ever since.

“It shocks me that people would ask ‘How can you discriminate?’ How could you think that? We’re brown people,” chuckled Khan, who has found humour in the angry customers’ outbursts.

Now, when patrons inquire on a possible relation between Chick-Felays and Chick-fil-A, Khan says his employees point out that the spelling, the menu and the logo are all different. But most importantly, the beliefs are different, he says.

“We welcome everyone, customers and employees, with our arms open and our hearts open,” he said, sitting in a booth at Chick-Felays’s newly opened Mississauga location on Latimer Dr. “Working in the service industry, it’s nonsense to publicly say what (Dan Cathy) said. It’s not good for business.”

Among the more memorable moments in his restaurants, Khan mentioned a couple who arrived at one location asking the cashier, “How can you work for a boss who is so discriminating?” while a family came in yelling “you’re disgusting.”

He said the situation became so severe at Chick-Felays’s Listowel restaurant that a sign had to be placed in the window indicating “We are pleased to announce that we are not affiliated with Chick-fil-A.”

Interestingly enough, no customers have come forward saying they support Chick-fil-A’s stance.

Khan started Chick-Felays, which he describes as “proudly Canadian,” in 2010 with his wife Afsheen. Apart from Listowel and Mississauga, they have franchises in Brampton and Oakville, with locations set to open in Milton, Scarborough and Markham by the end of the year, and Niagara next March. This growth spurt will also see locations pop up around the world, with restaurants planned for London, England and Abu Dhabi next year.

Unlike Chick-fil-A, known for its southern cooking and being closed on Sundays, Chick-Felays’s focus is on grilled chicken prepared with North African spices. It uses Peri Peri peppers in most of its dishes, which can range from mild to extra spicy. The hotness factor is represented by the restaurant’s logo: a fire-breathing chicken.

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Khan says now that he is aware of the Chick-fil-A controversy, he has been following it more closely. Protests, including gay “kiss-ins,” were held in the parking lots of several locations across the U.S. last week, as well as counterprotests supported by one-time Republican presidential candidates Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

He says if he were ever to meet Dan Cathy, restaurateur to restaurateur, he would give him this advice: “I would tell him to smarten up. Think before you open your mouth. I would tell him that not hurting people, even with words, is what humanity is all about.”