I wrote about the chicken chain’s early days in Lorain County back here.
Back then, the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise rights in our area were held by Kenny King’s, so that was the name on the building. Note that the Oberlin Avenue store was carry out only.
A few days later on April 27th, the Journal covered the store’s opening with the photo below of employee Diane Schneider of Lorain, displaying a chicken dinner.
Sadly, the store on Oberlin Avenue and the other Lorain KFC outlet on Henderson Drive have been closed for years. Today, when you have a craving for that dee-licious original recipe chicken, you have to head out of town to the store on Leavitt Road in Amherst, or the Sheffield Village store on State Route 254.
Recently, the former Kenny King’s store on Oberlin Avenue has become the new home to two businesses. The building looks pretty nice.
(You might remember that before Kenny King’s moved in, the building was briefly home to the largely forgotten Taco Kid.)
My sister used to work at the Kenny Kings on Henderson Drive back in the late "70s.She would always get to bring home a free bucket of chicken every night.Then our family pretty much got burned out of KFC for awhile.
ReplyDelete....When I worked at Economy Sales/ESCO next door, it was a real treat to get lunch at the KFC. The fries there were still the best I've ever had.
ReplyDeleteThere's one off Rt. 57 in Elyria now.
ReplyDeleteIt’s ridiculous that KFC has basically abandoned the Lorain market. If Taco Bell had enough guts to build a brand new outlet on Oberlin Avenue a couple years ago, why not KFC? Lorainites gotta eat.
ReplyDeleteAnd why isn’t there one in Vermilion for that matter? It’s not like there are a lot of chicken places competing with KFC. The nearest Chick-fil-A is in Sandusky; same thing with Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken. And you have to drive to Toledo for Church’s Chicken.
There is another chicken joint, Popeyes Chicken,up in North Olmstead...It's in where the old Donatos Pizza used to be on Lorain Rd across from the shopping center.
DeleteMy sister also worked at KFC after working at . . . wait for it . . Brady's Chuck Wagon! One night at KFC she got a crank phone call request to which she replied: "Cram it, pal. We only sell chicken here."
ReplyDeleteConsider yourself lucky, Mr. Brady. I now live in White Plains, NY where the are NO, ZIP, ZILCH fast food drive-ins. The last KFC turned into a Dunkin' Donuts without any notice to me. Let me tell you, it took me a long time driving back and forth, muttering "I know it's here somewhere" before I realized that I was the victim of the old switcharoo.
ReplyDeleteYes, close to Cleveland you can take your pick of chicken places. There was a Popeyes on the West Side near my work on Detroit Road, but I was unimpressed – and apparently everybody else too, because it didn’t last. But everyone has their favorite and there’s room for everybody.
ReplyDeleteCompared to fast food-starved White Plains, I guess Lorain is lucky to have its McDonald’s (two locations I can think of), Wendy’s (1 location), Burger King (2 locations) and Taco Bell (1).
I’m partial to Burger King because it has been the most loyal to Lorain keeping its two original locations open for more than 50 years. I’ve been going to the one on Leavitt since it opened in 1969/1970.
For some reason I think there might have been a KFC in vermilion at one point.. there was a Dairy Queen located right across from the Giant Eagle shopping center back in the 80's... I think before that it was a KFC (maybe 1970's?)
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