KFC is testing table service, breakfast with fried chicken, and boba drinks at a McKinney, Texas restaurant as it works to win back American customers.
The fried-chicken chain has opened a prototype called Open House in McKinney, Texas, a 3,400-square-foot location that seats 52 and runs from 6 a.m. to midnight. The site mixes patio seating, breezeway spots, celebration booths, and cozy corners with kiosks and AI tools, all aimed at pulling diners in across more hours of the day.
Daily Mail reporting describes the project as a live test of menu, service, and design changes meant to reinvent KFC’s U.S. business and squeeze more sales from each restaurant. Company leaders call the approach “AUV-maxxing”, pushing average unit volume higher by opening new dayparts, channels, and occasions.
KFC U.S. President Catherine Tan-Gillespie has framed the Texas site as more than a one-off remodel. She told reporters the brand wants a fast-casual feel without the fast-casual price tag, while keeping ticket prices in line with comparable KFC stores.
A pre-opening event on September 22 let workers walk through food and drink options before the full launch. Breakfast is part of the trial. Tan-Gillespie put the mix in plain terms.
She said:
"Customers expect bacon and eggs for breakfast, but it wouldn't be KFC unless we included fried chicken,"
The broader menu still centers original-recipe buckets. It also adds tenders, wings, sandwiches, wraps, nuggets, new sauces, snacks, sweets, sides, premium drinks, and late-night items. Boba drinks sit alongside those extras as the chain hunts for reasons to visit beyond the dinner bucket.
That menu work lands as the brand tries to move past pure nostalgia. Tan-Gillespie has acknowledged the company “live[s] in memories.” Open House is built to test whether new formats can turn those memories into regular traffic.
Dine-in is the other big change. Open House expands seating and service far past the standard quick-serve counter.
Tan-Gillespie described the layout this way:
"We've really expanded our dine-in [service] with patio seating, breezeway seating; we've got celebration booths, we've got cozy corners that people can huddle in,"
Fox News reports the prototype pairs digital ordering and drive-thru tech with lobby hosts and table service. Design cues pull from Art Deco and mid-century modern styles, with large glass windows and outdoor dining meant to feel current while the chicken stays familiar.
Yum Brands’ partnership with Nvidia supplies the kiosks and AI tools. The stated goal is to free employees for hospitality work instead of stacking every task on the counter crew.
Readers following the chain’s U.S. reset can also see how KFC’s McKinney redesign guards the Colonel’s classic chicken while the building and service model change around it.
Tan-Gillespie has cast the Texas location as a learning lab, not a finished national blueprint. Successful pieces could spread. Weak ones can stay in McKinney.
She told Fox News Digital:
"This is the Kentucky Fried comeback made real in one restaurant,"
She also asked the practical design question hanging over the project:
"If the Colonel were building a restaurant from scratch today, what would this look like?"
In other comments she called it “a real restaurant built to learn” and said the company wants to open as many new channels, dayparts, menu options, experiences, and occasions as it can. The through-line is simple: get people in the door more often, at more times of day, without abandoning the core product.
That push sits against a harder recent stretch for the brand’s domestic footprint, including coverage of how KFC shut down more than 300 U.S. locations while rivals gained ground in the chicken market.
Separate reporting has detailed the same pressure in raw numbers, including the year KFC permanently closed 312 U.S. locations, with California among the hardest-hit states. Open House is the reverse bet: invest in one store dense with tests rather than manage decline.
Company language around the site is blunt. Leaders want customers visiting for breakfast, snacks, late nights, and sit-down meals, not only the familiar bucket run. Extended hours from 6 a.m. to midnight give those trips a clock to match.
Prices are supposed to stay comparable to other KFC locations even as the room and service move closer to fast-casual. That is the commercial wager: more occasions and a warmer room, without pricing families out.
Menu experiments fit the same pattern. The chain has already shown it will revive legacy items when demand is clear, including when KFC brought back Popcorn Chicken after years of customer pressure. Open House extends that customer-response logic to seating, hours, drinks, and service style.
Another look at the same Texas launch frames it as part of a wider effort in which KFC opened the McKinney test restaurant to retake U.S. fried-chicken lead. Whether breakfast chicken, boba, and booth service travel beyond one Texas suburb will show up in the sales data, not the slogans.
Private companies that lose traffic either adapt or shrink. KFC is using one McKinney dining room to find out which new habits customers will actually pay for, and which ones belong back in the memory book.