TIFTON — David Pettis has been hearing the rumors fly around town for months.

The owner/operator of Tifton’s Chick-Fil-A has heard that the restaurant is shutting down, moving and even that he will no longer be there. He laughs and knows that’s just part of it when one of Tifton’s most popular restaurants is planning a complete makeover.

“I’ve heard it all,” he said. “But we’ve communicated to our team exactly what the plans are and we want the public to know as well. It will be a big change for sure.”

The Chick-Fil-A, located near Interstate 75 on Highway 82 West, will close on Feb. 2 at 3 p.m. for a period of about 20 weeks. The current restaurant will be torn down and a new store will be constructed further off the road in the northeast corner of its current lot. Pettis said the new restaurant is scheduled to open in the last week of June, in preparation for one of its busiest times of the year.

“We plan to be open before July 4,” he said. “July is our busiest month of the year so once we open the doors, it’ll be wide open.”

The new restaurant will feature two drive-thrus with more room for both lanes than the store currently handles. Pettis said there will also be covered areas outside that will be manned with employees who will take orders and will be able to take payments so that customers will be able to pick up their orders when they get to the window. There will be an indoor playground area.

The kitchen area will be much larger than the current store. Pettis said that when the Tifton Chick-Fil-A opened in 1996, the kitchen area was designed to serve about one-third of the customers that they currently have. He said the new kitchen will be designed to serve double the customers the restaurant currently serves.

“The bigger kitchen will make it much easier for our employees and it will serve our customers better as well,” he said.

Pettis joined the Tifton store in 1997, one year after it opened. He said the restaurant expanded in 2006 when they added some seating but otherwise it has been unchanged.

“Compared to a lot of the other stores, this is an old store,” Pettis said. “The new restaurant will be a lot more modern. In terms of sales, we’re in the top 20 percent in sales compared to other Chick-Fil-A stores. But with the changes we’re making, my goal is for us to be the busiest Chick-Fil-A in Georgia by 2019.”

Pettis said that the restaurant’s leadership team will be paid during the time of the renovations and he plans to use that time for further training and to reinforce some of the standards that has made Chick-Fil-A one of the country’s leading chains.

“With the opening of the new store, we’re also approaching this as a chance to reinforce the Chick-Fil-A culture,” he said. “We strive to treat every customer with honesty, dignity and respect. That’s the kind of culture that has made Chick-Fil-A the company that it is on a national scale and it’s definitely the kind of culture that I strive to have with our customers and with our employees.

“While the reconstruction is going on, we’ll take some time to do more training with our team leaders to make sure we’re doing that in every way possible,” he added. “We’re also going to have our employees be involved in community service during that time. We want them out in the community, representing our company in a positive way.

Pettis said July is typically the store’s busiest month with an average of 2,500 transactions a day. The store usually triples its sales during the holiday because of its close proximity to Interstate 75.

There are no plans to add a second location anywhere else in Tifton, according to Pettis. He’s aware of that discussion in the community but said there is no basis to it.

“We’re excited about the new store, and we know we’ll be able to serve our customers better than we ever have,” he said. “I know something like this can be hard to conceive until you see it but I think once our customers do, they will really enjoy it.”