Kentucky Fried Chicken

[Bagels]

Not long ago, a KFC opened near me in a former BK. Another is currently under construction in a former weinersnitchel (which must’ve been another concept at some point, since it’s housed in a traditional fast food building). Of course, the local Asian population is rapidly growing.

They’ve had some great deals during COVID — e.g. $20 gets you 12 tenders, three sides and four biscuits — so we’ve been going one or twice a month. But personally, I stopped going to KFC nearly 20 years ago because the portion sizes never justified the price ... and the problem was compounded by greedy franchise owners. For example, circa 2002 I recall paying over $10, with a coupon, for a six piece strip meal that came with a side, biscuit and soda.... and the strips were no bigger than my pinky. When I complained, the cashier told me her manager instructed them to give customers the smallest tenders available. If the incident was an outlier, I’d understand. But it wasn’t. The same thing happened over, and over, and over again. At the time, I was in college and took home about $5 an hour from a PT job. Working two hours for a lousy meal that was suppose to be my weekly cheat meal just wasn’t going to happen.

[storewanderer]

For example, circa 2002 I recall paying over $10, with a coupon, for a six piece strip meal that came with a side, biscuit and soda.... and the strips were no bigger than my pinky. When I complained, the cashier told me her manager instructed them to give customers the smallest tenders available. If the incident was an outlier, I’d understand. But it wasn’t. The same thing happened over, and over, and over again.

That is around the time period I basically quit going to KFC as well due to those types of situations. Also at the time the Reno franchisee was running above corporate pricing on everything (literally covered up the prices on the pre-printed signs and put their own prices) and did not accept credit cards (only debit cards with a fee). However with the tenders KFC used to have a chart that showed what the standard tender size was and they were supposed to give extra pieces out if the tenders given were not the standard size.

I gravitated back from time to time. In recent years KFC offered a product called a GO CUP for 3.29-3.59 in Reno (was lower at rural locations- as low as 2.49) which was a big plastic cup with a split in half for popcorn chicken (or 2 strips) and potato wedges. The photo of this product was a big heaping container like a popcorn bucket. At the rural KFC locations and the Harlam Corp. Sacramento ones, they simply took the cup and filled it up with product. It was easily 3/4lb of food and a good value. At the Reno locations they took the Go Cup, then they took two small potato wedge boxes (these are the size of a value fry at Wendys- tiny) and put them into the Go Cup then filled those with I was told 3 oz of chicken and 3 oz of wedges and that was the "standard portion." The wedge boxes only went about 2/3 of the way down the Go Cup so the bottom 1/3 of the Go Cup was air and there was nothing "heaping" out of the top. I called them out on it and got a call from their area supervisor who went over the portion size thing with me and said her locations were portioning correctly and the other locations were over-portioning. I don't know. Also advised her of the awful iced tea. Went back again- same stingy Go Cup and same awful iced tea. That is fine- lost me as a customer again.

The other value offering KFC has (had) was the $5 Fill Up. I wasn't very interested in this item as I didn't want the drink or cookie and could take or leave the biscuit. One time in I believe Jackson, CA I went into the KFC and ordered one of these $5 Fill Ups anyway. I said for the side I wanted potato wedges (not the advertised mashed potatoes). The employee said okay that is fine and punched it that way on the receipt. I went back to that same location a month later and made the same order again, that time the employee told me no substitutions on the side item. I questioned it and the employee said okay you can substitute but I am going to charge you .50 extra. I said okay. So the employee punched the order in and was able to modify the side item in the system without the system adding anything. To charge me the extra .50 I was charged for a completely separate item under the description of "SIDE SUBSTITUTION." I did not go back, in fact I have probably only been to any KFC in total 3 times since that incident. This is the kind of thing that franchisees should not be allowed to do. This KFC was using the corporate cash register system, so the fact that button exists to charge a fee for a side substitution tells me this is something KFC Corporate is totally okay with. And I am perfectly okay with avoiding chains that operate like that.

[Romr123]

That's just the point--there are several corporate authorized POS systems...really YUM is just wanting to make sure it's getting it's royalties paid to the penny, on time. There are a couple vendors of fryers in several sizes...they want to provide as much of a (veneer) of independence to the franchisee as they can. Pricing (except for promos, which are agreed upon by the local marketing group) is really entirely up to the franchisee, with not much more than persuasion from any area YUM employee. As you saw, Harman's runs a good operation, and Reno...not so much. Generally the bigger multi-unit operators (like Harman or Border Foods) do a pretty good job, as they've got the internal sophistication to optimize their operation (pricing, operations, staffing, etc) with the guidance of the franchisor. The single-store operators are often in their units daily, so they're either stellar, or awful...think ChickFilA which uses that business model. The 2-25 unit operators are the ones which aren't great but monopolize/hold hostage a small metro.

KFC around us (Detroit metro) is split among several mid-sized franchisees...looks like 21 in inner ring suburbs are one old-line franchisee, city of Detroit and second ring suburbs are another. 30 years ago, city of Detroit, city of Lansing, all but one in the city of Flint and a few in between were all corporate, the above mentioned inner-ring franchisee was in roughly the same position now as then (they clearly don't want to go into the city of Detroit). The suburban franchisee does a big catering business (has a website and everything)

Taco Bell in Michigan seems split between a local (Lyden) company HQ in and centered on SE Michigan with other units in surrounding states/Ontario. Western/Northern Michigan is a different group from Minnesota, Border Foods.

[storewanderer]

That's just the point--there are several corporate authorized POS systems...really YUM is just wanting to make sure it's getting it's royalties paid to the penny, on time. There are a couple vendors of fryers in several sizes...they want to provide as much of a (veneer) of independence to the franchisee as they can. Pricing (except for promos, which are agreed upon by the local marketing group) is really entirely up to the franchisee, with not much more than persuasion from any area YUM employee. As you saw, Harman's runs a good operation, and Reno...not so much. Generally the bigger multi-unit operators (like Harman or Border Foods) do a pretty good job, as they've got the internal sophistication to optimize their operation (pricing, operations, staffing, etc) with the guidance of the franchisor. The single-store operators are often in their units daily, so they're either stellar, or awful...think ChickFilA which uses that business model. The 2-25 unit operators are the ones which aren't great but monopolize/hold hostage a small metro.

At this point the Reno franchisee actually has lower prices than the Harlam Corp. units which is interesting as it was not once the case.

The lowest priced KFCs in this area are a single operator with stores in Susanville, CA; Winnemucca, NV; and Elko, NV (interesting geography). These locations do not appear to be very lucrative, minimally staffed, slow on re-imaging, but they have survived all these years. There also is a KFC in Fallon, NV that run by a franchisee from Medford, OR but they since let that one go to the Reno franchisee, however that franchisee from Medford has kept a location in Pahrump, NV.

Does KFC still authorize multiple POS software in the US for traditional locations? All the ones I know of have moved onto the same software. I'm not sure what software it is, but In N Out and Boston Market use this same software. I have seen this software used with many different hardwares (NCR, IBM, Toshiba, PAR)... Long ago the corporate Wendys used it too but they have long since moved to the Aloha, and the corporate Carls used to use it too (also since left it). The KFC and In N Out versions of it process Chip Cards/Tap, the Boston Market Version of it still only swipes cards...

[BillyGr]

As you saw, Harman's runs a good operation, and Reno...not so much. Generally the bigger multi-unit operators (like Harman or Border Foods) do a pretty good job, as they've got the internal sophistication to optimize their operation (pricing, operations, staffing, etc) with the guidance of the franchisor. The single-store operators are often in their units daily, so they're either stellar, or awful...think ChickFilA which uses that business model. The 2-25 unit operators are the ones which aren't great but monopolize/hold hostage a small metro.

Not surprising that that group (Harman) does well, given their long history with the company (OK, actually going back to the original Harman and the original Colonel before there was even a company).
Not sure who is running it now, but with the founder only having passed away a few years ago (at 95), one would suspect that many of those in the company were involved when he was still there and follow his lead.

[storewanderer]

Not surprising that that group (Harman) does well, given their long history with the company (OK, actually going back to the original Harman and the original Colonel before there was even a company).
Not sure who is running it now, but with the founder only having passed away a few years ago (at 95), one would suspect that many of those in the company were involved when he was still there and follow his lead.

Harman used to give every unit manager the opportunity to purchase an ownership interest in the individual location. I am not sure if that is still how things work. It was an interesting model. It is a model that, if still standing, has definitely broken at the Grass Valley, CA location in the past couple years- not run well.