KFC has survived health scandals, veganism and a major delivery fail: can the fast food behemoth stay on top?
Before Donald Trump entered the White House, there was probably no other American businessman as instantly recognisable as “Colonel” Harland Sanders. True, Henry Ford and John D Rockefeller made far larger fortunes, but most people couldn’t pick them out of a line up. Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, however, enjoys a strange celebrity, even 40 years after his death. His face, with the distinctive goatee and browline glasses, is plastered across 22,000 KFC outlets around the world – including a branch called Sanders Cafe, a diner on Highway 25, just outside Corbin, Kentucky. It doesn’t look much, and is situated next to a rundown tanning salon (“new bulbs, new owner”); but for some this is a place of pilgrimage. In 1932, it became the Colonel’s first restaurant and remains open to this day.
At lunchtime, customers are queueing to place their orders and eat in the original chestnut-panelled dining room. On the way to the restrooms, a few display cabinets feature one of Sanders’ trademark white suits and string ties, alongside old menus and memorabilia. At one table, Leslie Shriner, 52, a fifth-grade teacher from Florida, sits with Jeff Metcalf, 52, who grew up and lives in Corbin. “He’s taken me here on a date. I think he’s trying to impress me,” she laughs. She’s only half joking. She and Jeff have been going out for six months; she’s paying him a visit and he wants to show her the sights. She hasn’t eaten a KFC meal since she was in high school. “I usually try to eat clean meats and organic vegetables and healthy food.” But he insisted they lunch at Kentucky’s most famous restaurant.
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