Vineland gets first Bojangles, opens on South Delsea Drive

Vineland picked up a new national chain when Bojangles opened at 3341 South Delsea Drive on March 24, giving Cumberland County its first location and adding another draw to one of the city’s busiest retail corridors.

The Carolina-born chain, founded in Charlotte in 1977, said the Vineland launch included a pre-opening thank-you event for the Vineland Fire Department, Vineland Police Department, EMTs and medics. That made the opening more than a ribbon-cutting moment. It tied the restaurant to the public-safety workers who know this stretch of South Delsea Drive as a steady source of calls, car traffic and everyday movement.

Bojangles now says it has more than 800 company-owned and franchised restaurants, and the Vineland site signals where the company sees room to grow in South Jersey. The location puts another fast-food option near Route 55 and the city’s retail strip, where each new chain can influence where drivers stop for lunch, takeout and dinner. The opening also means new restaurant jobs and another reason for local spending to stay in Vineland instead of leaking to nearby towns.

Vineland is not the only South Jersey community feeling that shift. Chick-fil-A opened its Blackwood location at Gloucester Outlets on April 2 at 6:30 a.m. after announcing the restaurant on March 26. The Blackwood store is the first Chick-fil-A in that community, and owner-operator Steve Bouhadana, a New Jersey native who started with the company in 2014 as a team member at Freehold Raceway Mall, is now running the new outlet there. The opening included a community-themed Moooove-In Party.

Taken together, the Vineland and Blackwood openings point to the same business calculation: national chains are betting on South Jersey’s established retail corridors, not just highway exits, to capture food dollars. For Cumberland County, Bojangles’ arrival is the clearest sign yet that South Delsea Drive remains a place where outside brands believe they can win traffic, repeat customers and a larger share of local spending.