Eater London reports:

Chick-fil-A, the controversial American fast food brand, famous as much for its donations to anti-LGBT organisations as it is for fried chicken sandwiches, is being forced to close its first U.K. restaurant. It opened only eight days ago.

The company, which appeared to be at the beginning of a major European expansion, opened at the Oracle shopping centre in Reading on 10 October. It will now close after pressure from local gay rights groups and a media row around the causes it has historically supported.

The Oracle shopping centre said it would not renew its lease and that it “was the right thing to do” but did not address why it had offered the lease in the first place, given Chick-fil-A’s controversial record was well-known.

In 2010 this website broke the first story about Chick-Fil-A’s involvement with hate groups when we exposed the fact that they were sponsoring in part an event with Cincinnati’s rabidly anti-gay group the Citizens for Community Values and also donated to other hate groups across the country