The best roasted chicken I’ve ever eaten in my entire life was at Kenny Rogers Roasted Chicken. They had a 20 min long line of people waiting to get in every single day at lunch and dinner. I still wonder how they got it so juicy and tender. *I’m not a roasted chicken guy. *Its the most boring, dry food out there. Especially the roasted birds sold at the grocery stores. But for one magical month I ate Kenny Rogers Roasted chicken three times a week.
Then, it imploded. The food went to crap overnight. They had long Lines of people and within two weeks the place was nearly empty at dinner. It closed after five months.
I’ve heard the same thing happened across the country. Fantastic, addictive roasted chicken for a month or so. Then horrible for a few months until it closed. I’ve never seen a chain restaurant die so quickly.
What happened? Why couldn’t they keep the food consistently good? Was the cooking process that difficult? I recall they had special roasting equipment. The chicken was cooked very slowly to keep it moist.
They also got sued for recipe infringement by a smaller chicken restaurant chain, in a suit that was apparently live enough that KRR ended up buying out the other chain as a defensive measure.
Anyone make fantastic roast chicken at home? I’d love a recipe. AFAIK every Kenny Rogers location closed in the South over fifteen ears ago. I have never seen one since before 2001.
Just a note (with little to help answer your question) but K.R.R. was alive and well in the Mall of Indonesia in Jakarta when I was there this past January. I had to snap a photo since I figured no one would believe it, but i (somewhat regretfully) didn’t eat there.
I could be wrong on the timeline but wasn’t it “KRR hit the scene and was really popular. Real Kenny Rogers gets found out as a perv caller harassing women. Restaurant business suffers.”
It’s the usual course for such things: a product that is truly superior because it’s produced in small quantities by a person or company that actually cares about the quality is one thing. When that product suddenly has to be serve-able by fifty franchise locations and be profitable enough to make others want to buy in, it has to be streamlined, cost-controlled, bulk-produced and absolutely uniform in final prep… all of which are contrary to the original concept.
So they go to shit, go broke or both.
Remember that the first thing Asa Candler did with his new acquisition was completely reformulate Pemberton’s concoction, which was too complicated and too unstable for mass production.
None of that is mentioned in the Wikipedia article on him. And I also learned from Wikipedia that apparently the restaurant chain is still around, just in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Could be is it depended on high sales rate to keep the chicken moist, which during their opening excitement they get, but when that excitement dies down the chickens sit around drying out.
But I just take it as they jumped in to compete with Boston Market, but the chicken serving business was already in a decline at that time
If you google ‘Kenny Rogers Phone Sex Scandal’, there is information out there. In 2012 he set up an 800 number for women to call him for phone sex, he lured one of them to a hotel room, and three others tried suing him for harassment. (?) This was settled out of court. I DO remember seeing him on Larry King, delicately trying to explain himself to his blue-hair fans, he was sweating like he ran a marathon.
I’ve read that chain restaurants often bring in a specialized crew to open a new restaurant. They make great food and focus on service. It gives the restaurant a favorable start in a new location and attracts loyal customers.
They train locals to cook the menu and run the restaurant. The specialized crew leaves for the chain’s next restaurant opening.
It didn’t seem to work for Kenny Rogers. The locals just couldn’t replicate the menu. From what I recall, that seemed to happen at every new location. Great food for a month or so and then it imploded. I guess thats when the specialized crew moved on to the next new outlet.
