This NC man is gaining fame in central NY — for bringing something they just don’t have

A man moving from North Carolina to central New York state has become something of a celebrity in the Syracuse area.

That’s because Jimmer Szatkowski is bringing the region something it doesn’t have – a Chick-fil-A restaurant.

Szatkowski, after a 20-year career at IBM, plans to own and operate a Chick-fil-A that’s set to open in the suburb town of Cicero in February, NewsChannel 9 reported.

“I can tell you this: my children are infinitely more interested in what I do for a living now than when I worked at IBM,” Szatkowski told NewsChannel9.

Though Chick-fil-A restaurants seem to be around every corner in North Carolina, which has more than 150 locations, Central New York is a Chick-fil-A desert. There are eight Chick-fil-A restaurants in New York, but all are in New York City or on Long Island.

The closest location to Syracuse is nearly a three-hour drive away, and in Pennsylvania, though several new locations are in the works in Upstate New York, according to The Post-Standard.

This story was originally published December 8, 2017 at 11:08 AM with the headline "This NC man is gaining fame in central NY — for bringing something they just don’t have."