Apparently, Chick-fil-a was the only food service available at one of the twenty seven rest stops.

According to the NYTimes: "The issue dates back to 2021, when the New York State Thruway Authority invited bids for the right to operate its 27 service areas." Like most public-private partnerships, final authority rests with the public (private companies involved in these projects are miniscule in comparison to the public interests). https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/30/nyregion/chick-fil-a-thruway-rest-stop-sundays.html

While I understand your reasons for not wanting to over-react, I'm a bit of a public policy junkie and don't think its possible to over-react strongly enough.

Gangs of America, by Ted Nace, is the most comprehensive, enjoyable and readable history of corporations in America that I've found. The book is now available to read on-line, for free (pdf). https://web.archive.org/web/20080207005752/http://www.gangsofamerica.com/read.html

Here are a few excerpts from Gangs of America...

We forget that... "...the American Revolution was directly and explicitly an anti-corporate revolt. Part of the backdrop for that revolt were the long-standing anti-corporate sentiments among lower class people such as indentured servants and conscript sailors. In the eighteenth century, following with the legislative suppression of corporate enterprise in Britain after the Bubble Act of 1719."

"Second, the Boston Tea Party can’t be explained merely as an outburst of nationalism." Looking closely at the events that led up to that night, we see that it was a highly targeted attempt to block the British East India Company from carrying out a specific plan to monopolize American commodities markets, starting with tea."

"When respectable American businessmen including John Hancock, one of the richest men in America took the uncharacteristically radical action of dressing up in disguise and committing wholesale vandalism, the motivating force was not abstract. It was literally to defend their businesses. In other words, it was a highly pragmatic economic rebellion against an overbearing corporation, rather than a political rebellion against an oppressive government. Or more accurately, it was a rebellion against a corporation and a government that were thoroughly intertwined."

"At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, only six business corporations other than banks existed in the United States: one for organizing a fishery in New York, one for conducting trade in Pennsylvania, one for conducting trade in Connecticut, one for operating a wharf in Connecticut, one for providing fire insurance in Pennsylvania, and one for operating a pier in Boston."

By 1816, anti-corporate sentiments were still strong: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Thomas Jefferson, 1816