The opening of a Chick-fil-A restaurant is not about a bunch of people standing around with big scissors to cut a red ribbon. There is ritual and tradition associated with a Chick-fil-A.

Want to score 52 free meals? You need to be part of the Chick-fil-A 100 Club. The first 100 people through the doors on an opening day get a free meal once a week for a year.

Opening day at the new Whitehall location, 2610 MacArthur Road, was Sept. 22. By 3 p.m. the day before, 30 slots were already taken.

“Once someone registers, they can’t leave the parking lot until the store opens. If they leave, we cut their band, and they need to register again if there are open slots. We run checks throughout the night,” said Becki Kerchner, one of the support staff on site for the opening.

Since registrants cannot leave the premises, they pitch tents and spend a night in the parking lot.

“We have employees coming from all over for these openings,” she said. “It is a family event, so no drinking is allowed. People bring their whole families along because it’s like an all-night slumber party, but you need to be 18 or over to get the free meals.”

Being in the Chick-fil-A 100 Club isn’t all fun and games; wait a minute - it is all fun and games.

“We give them a free dinner and breakfast in the morning. We have an ice cream social, and then we have Facebook contests. A deejay plays most of the night,” Kerchner said. “This year, we are asking people to call their friends and have them bring in children’s books for our book barn.”

Most of the people signed in at the Whitehall location were first-timers to such an event.

But there were plenty of repeat customers. For example, this was Dianne Trivino’s fifth opening.

“I did most of them in the area,” she said. “We are from Sellersville, and I enjoy getting out. We put up our canopy and wrap a tarp around it at night.”

For her husband, Lou, this is his first overnight.

“When she was at one of these, I would bring her stuff that she needed. We made sure we weren’t going to need anything else for this one,” he said.

Dianne said her toughest one was the opening at the Hatfield location.

“It was so cold they let us inside the building to warm up. I went to one, and they lost power and couldn’t make anything at the opening,” she said.

Loretta Gilmore and her friend Mim Myers held up the senior citizen corner in the parking lot. This is Gilmore’s eighth opening event.

“I asked Mim to come along on this one. We’ve been friends for a long time, and she has never been to one before,” she said.

Gilmore said her memories are of the opening in York: “We had thunderstorms and a lot of wind. They brought us into the restaurant during the biggest winds. Most of the tents blew down, but my little tent stayed up the whole time,” she said. “I missed the one in Hatfield, but my friend said her clothes were so frozen she could stand them up by the washer.”

Eight openings might seem like a lot, but the champion is Marvina Bolton of Quakertown.

“I’ve been all over the country. I went to Dallas, Cheyenne and places I’ve never been before. In the past five years, this will be my 56th opening,” she said.

Chick-fil-A has since changed the rules for the 100 Club. Now the 100 slots can be filled by people only in the immediate area. They have a list of qualifying ZIP codes.

“I wanted to get to 100 openings, but I can’t with the new rules. As for my winnings, I can eat Chick-fil-A every day,” Bolton said.

She has earned almost 3,000 meals.

“I do it because you get to renew old friendships. After you come to a few, you get to know everyone including the people from the company,” she said. “I’m a funeral director. I deal with sorrow and loss every day. It’s great to be out here where everyone is happy and having fun.”

With so many opening day experiences, Bolton said she likes the way the company does business.

“I want to eventually get to the point where I can own one of the franchise locations,” she said.

This new Whitehall location has created 90 new jobs. The owner started as part-time help in another Chick-fil-A franchise and became more enchanted with the way the company runs its business.

According to Bolton, Chick-fil-A is up on technology.

“They have good data on how many meals they are going to serve during certain hours of the day. That way at lunch time everything is hot, and there isn’t a long wait time. They use hand-held computers to place orders during heavy times when the lines are long,” she said.

Bolton likes the idea that they are not open Sundays.

“They have principles they stick to, and that is one of the reasons they are so successful,” she said. “They get some bad press because they are a Christian-based company, but they treat everyone that comes through the door with dignity and respect. It’s part of the way they train their employees. That doesn’t happen too often in this kind of business.”

Chick-fil-A also will open locations this month in Virginia, Texas and Minnesota.