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Colonel Sanders other chicken restaurant chain????

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 20:27
by wayne winterland jr.
Does anyone remember the other Chicken Restaurant Chain that Colonel Sanders tried to start???? I don't know how many of them he had but here is what I remember once reading about them. I believe that it was when Colonel Sanders sold his KFC restaurants to the Heublein Company at that time and of course there is usually the no compete type clause in the sales contract stating that Colonel Sanders wouldn't open up any of his restaurants and wouldn't compete with the KFC chain that he had sold to the Heublein Company. The story that I read showed Colonel Sanders to be quite a sharp operator. So the story goes that he didn't open any chicken restaurants under his name but instead opened restaurants under his wife's name (Mrs. Colonel Sander's Restaurants). I may not have the name absolutely correct but he supposedly opened the restaurants under his wife's name and thus he didn't technically violate the sales contract with the Heublein Company and he could still capitalize on his name and his managerial knowhow and experience. He was a slick operator any way you look at it.

Posted: 22 Dec 2005 23:09
by Dave
Harlan Sander's wife, Claudia, had a restaurant called "Claudia Sander's Dinner House" in Kentucky, but I don't believe it was a chain. One of Sander's buddies, Lee Cummings, sold chicken cookers along with Col. Sanders during the 1950's. When the Colonel sold out in the 1960's, he started "Lee's Famous Recipe Fried Chicken", which was larer acquired by Shoney's and then another group. This may be what you're thinking about.

I've heard that Col. Sanders main culinary interest wasn't necessarily the chicken, but the gravy. He apparently was royally ticked off when Heublien screwed up the gravy and called it "sludge" in public. Heublein sued him in 1975 for libel for his comments regarding the gravy. At the time, Heublien was paying him $250,000 a year to promote KFC.

Posted: 20 Jan 2006 14:06
by rrr
The Claudia Sanders Dinner House aka The Colonel's Lady to locals still exists in Shelbyville, KY just east of Louisville. The original building burned down a few years ago and was rebuilt in a sort of southern mansion style.

Posted: 24 Jan 2007 17:37
by dth1971
I thought the other KFC chain was Gino's!

Posted: 24 Jan 2007 19:38
by Groceteria
dth1971 wrote:I thought the other KFC chain was Gino's!
Gino's was just a KFC franchisee, I believe.

Posted: 26 Jan 2007 20:04
by webcookie
Dave wrote:When the Colonel sold out in the 1960's, he started "Lee's Famous Recipe Fried Chicken", which was larer acquired by Shoney's and then another group. This may be what you're thinking about.
Here in Middletown, NY we had a place called Famous Recipe and it was, if I recall correctly, a chicken place kind of similar to KFC. Was this the same thing?

Posted: 26 Jan 2007 21:12
by Transit Road
Yes, it probably is the same restaurant. Lee's Famous Recipe Fried Chicken had locations in Monroe, Chester, and Middletown, NY back in the early 1980's.

The location in Monroe was in the Shop Rite Plaza on NY 17M (not a freestanding location, but situated within a strip of stores across from Shop Rite), the Chester location, I believe, was in the Grand Union plaza near the Quickway, and Middletown's location was probably on Dolson Ave.

Posted: 26 Jan 2007 21:16
by webcookie
Transit Road wrote:Yes, it probably is the same restaurant. Lee's Famous Recipe Fried Chicken had locations in Monroe, Chester, and Middletown, NY back in the early 1980's.

The location in Monroe was in the Shop Rite Plaza on NY 17M (not a freestanding location, but situated within a strip of stores across from Shop Rite), the Chester location, I believe, was in the Grand Union plaza near the Quickway, and Middletown's location was probably on Dolson Ave.
The place I'm thinking of was on Dolson Avenue where the Monro Muffler shop is now. Cool!

Posted: 29 Jan 2007 16:40
by krogerclerk
There seems to be debate as to whether the Lee's Famous Recipe is the actual Colonel Sander's original recipe or not. It has been said that the original recipe at Kentucky Fried Chicken was altered after Colonel Sander's sold the chain and that Lee's uses a more authentic recipe for the chicken and the gravy. Of course, KFC no longer makes the gravy from scratch and it is obviously different tasting from the homemade gravy of the past, which varied in different regions in color and flavor.
The chicken flavor is debatable as to whether it's an alteration in the recipe or the size and quality of the chicken.