KFC has opened a new McKinney, Texas test restaurant packed with breakfast, late hours, and table service as the chain works to climb back atop the U.S. fried chicken market.
The Kentucky-born chain launched the concept, called Open House, on Thursday in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs. It is a live lab for menu changes, longer hours, and a sharper focus on how customers feel while they eat, not just what lands in the bucket.
AP reporting describes the site as KFC’s home-market proving ground while U.S. sales lag and rivals keep pressure on. Abroad, the brand is still growing. At home, it wants the top of the pecking order back.
Open House is the first KFC in the United States to serve breakfast. It also stays open late. The menu adds boba-filled refreshers, crunchy-topped milkshakes, more tenders and sauces, plus sides such as fried green beans and spicy pickles.
Guests order at digital kiosks. Staff then bring food to the table. The building has double drive-thru lanes, a mobile pickup station, a photo booth, and a counter for branded merch. The design pushes people to stay, not just grab and go.
Christophe Poirier, KFC’s chief concept officer, leads the new restaurant design work. He framed the bet in plain terms: memory beats the meal if the feeling is wrong.
Poirier said,
"People don't remember what they eat, but they remember how they were feeling when they were eating,"
He also compared the goal to a high-end retailer. Automate ordering, he argued, so workers can deliver hospitality instead of punching buttons.
Poirier said,
"You leave the retailer and say, 'Wow. The product is amazing, but beyond that the service was amazing. For 10 or 15 minutes I was feeling like a king,'"
That is the pitch. Fast food that feels less like a transaction and more like a short break customers choose on purpose.
KFC pioneered fast-food fried chicken. Harland Sanders began serving travelers from a Corbin, Kentucky roadside motel in 1930. The first franchise opened in Utah in 1952. Yum Brands, based in Louisville, Kentucky, owns the chain today.
The U.S. story is harder now. Sales at home are down. The brand is thriving overseas. As of June it counted more than 34,000 restaurants in over 150 countries. Poirier said a new branch opens somewhere in the world every three and a half hours.
Raising Cane’s is the named rival putting heat on the Colonel’s U.S. business. KFC still runs 3,424 restaurants in this country. It has not said how much of the Open House look, tech, or menu will spread to that system.
A similar drink lineup is already live in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Turkey, and other markets. Multi-story flagships are also set for Dubai, Seoul, and London. The McKinney site is the domestic stress test.
The New York Post reported the same Open House launch as a full concept reset, design, dayparts, and chicken formats together in one building. The store mixes large glass, mid-century and Art Deco cues, booths, outdoor dining, lobby hosts, and table service with the digital and drive-thru gear.
Buckets and the original recipe stay central. Around them sit tenders, wings, sandwiches, wraps, nuggets, new sauces, snacks, sweets, sides, and breakfast. The aim is everyday eating occasions, not only nostalgia.
KFC U.S. President Catherine Tan-Gillespie put the problem bluntly in that coverage. The brand lives in people’s memories more than in today’s meal decisions.
Tan-Gillespie said the McKinney restaurant is the comeback made real in one location, a test bed before any wider roll. Success in a competitive Texas market would matter for national scaling. Failure would stay local.
KFC has not published a full street address dump, exact closing times, or a hard list of which Open House items go national. It has not quantified the U.S. sales slide with a public dollar figure or date range in the available reporting. Flagship opening dates for Dubai, Seoul, and London remain unstated.
What is clear is the strategy. Longer hours. Breakfast. More chicken forms. Drinks and sides that chase younger habits. Tech that frees staff for table service. A store built so the visit sticks after the last wing is gone.
Free markets reward the chain that wins the next order, not the one that won the last generation. KFC is treating customer choice like a contest it can still lose, and still win back.
When a legacy brand has to earn the lunch rush again, shoppers get better service, longer hours, and a real fight for their dollars. That is how competition is supposed to work.