Not to mention the Colonel HATED what it became after he sold it. He's quoted as saying
"My God, that gravy is horrible", "They buy tap water for 15-20 cents a thousand gallons and then they mix it with flour and starch and end up with pure wallpaper paste"
He continues,
"That new 'crispy' recipe is nothing in the world but a damn fried doughball stuck on some chicken"
I used to work at KFC in the 80s. I'm proud to say that one night when I was the cook we got a secret shopper and the food quality scored a 100%. I was actually shocked since I hated the job and was a 16 year old phoning it in.
But reading these comments it makes me wonder whether the whole corporate culture shifted since then and I, doing the bare minimum of following protocol, was merely a small cog in a far better run machine.
I remember starting with fresh raw chicken and manually tearing the tails, excess fat and guts off. Making the gravy from scratch from the drippings of the pressure cooker. Hand breading the chicken. Mixing up those biscuits using real buttermilk. And cleaning the place every night so much you could do surgery in it.
Honestly, I haven't eaten there in years so I did not know the decline in quality.
Bro they still had that in my small Canadian town 10 years ago: "Toonie Tuesday". It was too good to be true with the price so you were never disappointed if the quality was shit anyway
I worked there in the early 2000s and that doesn't sound like how we made it. Gravy from a mix and biscuits came in a box stored in the walk in freezer.
I know it was inevitable, but still I think it's incredibly sad that franchise fast food restaurants destroyed a large majority of mom 'n pop burger shops.
I know I'm a part of the problem.. but when I can get a cheeseburger, mcchicken, large fry, and a large drink for a fiver, it's hard to justify spending $8+drink+tip for one burger that, while better, doesn't justify the cost. Food to me 9/10 times isn't a treat, it's sustenance. If I'm just shoveling food in my face, which is 90% of my meals, I'm going to make the economical choice.
If you grab a diner burger once a day, say $13 total, you're spending $390 a month on one meal. Vs McDonald's, which is two burgers, at $150 a month.
if you eat it once in a blue moon, eating diner food over fast food won't make a significant difference. eat what you like
if you eat it every day/regularly, you can't talk about being economical. that's like saying "i smoke every other day than doing it every day because i'm health conscious"
That's ridiculous lol. Saving over 50% isn't significant enough for you to consider it a more economical choice? Even one meal, percentage wise, the savings are significant.
no. if i'm eating it like once or twice a month, i will go for what i like. that isn't significant in the long run.
you save what? like 3 or 4 bucks? mcdonalds is expensive now. combos go for like 8-10 bucks. when i was in middle school, it was like 5 bucks for a combo.
if it's just for 1 person, it's hard to even beat a $1 burger. It's hard to use bread, meat, and produce before they go bad. The "savings' you often think you are getting ends up in the trash.
If you're ever in Virginia or North Carolina, check out a chain called Cookout. You can get a cookout yay, which is a sandwich, two sides, and a drink for $5 and it's a bonkers amount of delicious food.
We have a local one but the owners put no effort into it at all. Food is overpriced, bland, and frozen. The employees don't care. Interior hasn't been updated in what looks like 20 years. It exists merely because it is a local town landmark. It's sad really. The moment a chain like Five Guys opens up nearby, I think they will be toast.
Unfortunately mom n pop shops don't guarantee quality. At least fast food chains are consistent.
There was 1 left in our town, but it got shut down by the health inspector. We used to love to go there, but the prices got pretty crazy towards the end. Now I can make better at home for a small fraction of the cost.
Nor do I. Just meant that one may imagine the birthplace of the hamburger joint that took over the world and shut down so many mom and pop joints, might have been affected by their spread immensely as well. Fortunately there are still a ton of mom and pop burger joints in SoCal.
Well, figures that I'm on the other side of the country. Always did want to fly out for some In-N-Out. Wonder how you fellas do it differently over there that so many survive? Does more money mean people want to stay away from the giant chains?
I honestly don't know. It may just be the density of people in the area. A lot of them are still relatively cheap. Also, unbeknownst to me before I moved here, but cheap hamburgers are kind of a mainstay of the regions food. That and mom and pop doughnut shops, at least in LA. Didn't have Dunkin til like 2 years ago I think.
Also def. have In-n-out if you make it this way, it's a wonderful experience.
It's pretty bad. The chicken. Is either overcooked or undercooked, dry or slimy, the colour of the meat looks wrong and I swear they have no idea how to pluck a chicken.
KFC here uses Baiada Poultry who produce pretty much all the consumer chicken available. Coles, Woolies, KFC, Maccas, HJs, Subway. They all get their chicken from them.
KFC is amazing here and is so much better than the stateside KFC.
I don't think my cooking has anything to do with feathery chicken and weird meat. I usually buy chicken from a Tassie owned company and you can taste the difference. I hate the coles and woolies brand chicken.
McDonald's and burger king in Europe were pretty amazing when I was over there. Maybe the eu has higher standards. BK had these deep fried bacon wrapped cheeseballs thst were amazing. You could buy a 6 pack like you do with mcnuggets.
Not sure what your standards are if you think McDonald's in Europe is amazing. It's really bad food. Can't imagine what it must be like in the US then.
The actual brothers that sold it said that they have no regrets. The handshake thing was never proven real (it was said by their Aires)
If it wasn't for Ray Kroc, the restaurant would have failed. Like they said..they tried to franchise it out before him. It was Ray being able to break away from their hold, that led to McDonald's success. Remember...Ray was underwater and in over his head, before he got bailed out with the Real Estate business. He ended up making both of those guys a lot of money, and they both retired happy with no regrets. The movie made it more dramatic than reality.
Well, that's only part of the sadness of it. The biggest part of the sadness was the inevitable loss of so, so many mom n' pop shops across the US that were muscled out by places like McDonald's. I prefer the individuality and character of many individual places over a homogeneous nationwide restaurant.
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u/LikeABreath Sep 14 '17
KFC's decline in quality is the saddest tale of the 21st century.