KFC’s Dying Empire Just Opened a Texas Lab to Beg for Relevance

KFC invented American fried chicken. Now it’s losing to sauce-obsessed upstarts and looks desperate.

On Thursday, the brand opened an “Open House” in McKinney, Texas — a gleaming test lab with breakfast (a U.S. first), late hours, boba refreshers, crunchy milkshakes, fried green beans, spicy pickles, double drive-thrus, table service after kiosk ordering, a photo booth, and merch. The pitch from Chief Concept Officer Christophe Poirier: make fast food feel like an Apple Store so customers leave thinking “I felt like a king for 15 minutes.”

Reality check: KFC’s U.S. share of chicken-chain sales cratered from 20% in 2015 to 8% in 2025 while the category more than doubled to $57.7 billion. Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Raising Cane’s, Dave’s Hot Chicken, and Wingstop ate its lunch. McDonald’s is even adding hand-breaded chicken. Since 2022, the company has shuttered 529 U.S. restaurants. Younger customers call the brand old, tired, and grubby.

Overseas, KFC still prints money — China alone is nearly 40% of its 34,000+ global stores. In America, it’s playing catch-up with tenders, sauces, and Instagram bait while insisting it won’t abandon Colonel Sanders’ bone-in heritage.

The Texas experiment may spread drinks and some sides. The bigger question is whether nostalgia and a photo booth can reverse a decade of looking outdated while the competition focused on what people actually order now.

KFC built the category. It’s now testing whether it can still own it — or just rent space in it.