The only Chick-fil-A in the country serving nugget pizza and bone-in wings is shutting down its experimental menu. Chick-fil-A's Little Blue Menu test kitchen on Baltimore Avenue in College Park will close in early 2027, with the location converting into a traditional Chick-fil-A restaurant.
A Chick-fil-A spokesperson confirmed the closure of the College Park test kitchen, according to WBFF. The College Park spot, which opened in September 2023, is the sole surviving Little Blue Menu location in the country, and guests will still be able to order its test items until the switch takes place in early 2027.
Located near the University of Maryland campus, the restaurant became known for menu items that never made it to standard Chick-fil-A locations, including hamburgers, wings, and pizza, per the station's report. The site was intentionally placed adjacent to the flagship campus, giving Chick-fil-A's innovation arm direct access to a student population of more than 40,000, according to The Takeout.
A Five-Year Test-and-Learn Experiment Comes to an End
Little Blue Menu was designed as a test-and-learn concept, the same framing WBFF's report uses, rather than a permanent new brand. It was developed under Red Wagon Ventures, Chick-fil-A's corporate innovation subsidiary founded in 2017 to incubate business models outside the core fast-food chain, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The venture's name pays homage to the red wagon founder Truett Cathy used as a six-year-old to sell Coca-Cola during the Great Depression.
The Little Blue Menu name itself traces back further, to the original blue menu binder Cathy used at his first diner, The Dwarf Grill, which opened in Hapeville, Georgia, in 1946, per Patch. Cathy frequently altered that original menu to test new recipes with customers, a habit that eventually led to his invention of the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich in 1964.
College Park was not the first stop for the concept. Chick-fil-A originally launched Little Blue Menu in Nashville in October 2021 as a delivery-only virtual kitchen featuring three brand spin-offs, Outfox Wings, Garden Day, and Flock & Farm, before closing that pilot after roughly 18 months, according to Nation's Restaurant News. In between the Nashville closure and the College Park opening, the company also ran a Little Blue Menu food truck in mid-2023 that tested bone-in wings and seasoning sauces across Kentucky, Indiana, and Georgia.
The Nugget Pizza That Made Headlines
The College Park kitchen's most talked-about experiment came in March 2024, when Chick-fil-A introduced six new pizza offerings there, including a Chick-fil-A Pizza Pie topped with chopped chicken nuggets, pickles, and Chick-fil-A sauce. It marked the fast-food chain's first time ever serving pizza, and the company's culinary test kitchen developed the pies after noticing customers building their own homemade Chick-fil-A pizzas on social media.
Local food blogger and University of Maryland alumnus Nick “Mr. 8 That” Sevilla reviewed the College Park menu in August, giving it a 7.6 out of 10 overall. He praised the tender burgers but noted the nugget pizza came out somewhat dry without a base sauce, scoring the test kitchen 3.5 out of 5 for taste and 4.1 out of 5 for price, according to The MoCo Show.
Part Of A Bigger Digital Push
The Little Blue Menu shutdown fits into a broader shift in how Chick-fil-A tests new store formats. Systemwide digital sales at the chain expanded to over 40% of total revenue in 2021 and exceeded 50% in some urban markets, a trend that pushed the company toward digital-first operational concepts, according to American Recruiters.
Little Blue Menu is just one of several experimental formats Chick-fil-A has tested nationwide. The company opened a mobile-pickup-only store in New York City in March 2024 and a two-story, four-lane elevated drive-thru in McDonough, Georgia, that August, complete with a second-story kitchen and an overhead conveyor system capable of dispatching meals every six seconds. In late October 2025, Chick-fil-A's innovation unit also opened Daybright in Hiram, Georgia, a standalone beverage-focused drive-thru serving specialty coffee, tea, and smoothies with no core Chick-fil-A food items, according to Restaurant Dive.
Even as the physical Little Blue Menu brand winds down, Chick-fil-A views the concept as a successful test-and-learn incubator rather than a failure, the same outlet reports. What remains unresolved for College Park regulars is whether any of the test kitchen's most popular items, including the nugget pizza or the bone-in wings, will ever make it onto a standard Chick-fil-A menu, and how the interior conversion will change drive-thru and dine-in operations for University of Maryland students along Baltimore Avenue.
