Saturday 22 March 2008

Bouncers Hired to Prevent Trouble at KFC

KFC Camden has become the first fast-food restaurant in Britain to be forced to employ bouncers in an effort to prevent trouble at the crime-ridden location. In recent times, patrons of the North London eatery have been slashed with a knife, smashed with a bottle and kicked in the head, while reports have suggested that the premise often "smelt of cannabis".

Aside from the fact you'd need to be clucking mad to venture here after dark, I am curious as to what new rules have been put in place with the introduction of this new security. If my knowledge of bouncers is anything to go by, I can only assume that there is some kind of dress code to be followed and that you must be able to walk in a straight line to get in. Of course in this case, I fully support these requirements - as we all know, if you're not visiting KFC dressed as a Kentucky gent in a fine white suit, with a fresh palette to sample the Colonel's delicious chicken, then you shouldn't be there anyway.

Read more here.

Saturday 15 March 2008

Lancaster: The Review

Lancaster KFC has for many years been an extremely sad experience. Sure, the Colonel did a fantastic job renovating the place with bright colours, Kandinsky prints and even a large kiddie's banquet table. Sadly, that was probably in around 1980. Up until last year, grease dripped from the ceiling (literally), tables were left strewn with rubbish and the kiddie's table? Well let's just say, the Colonel's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices has an incredible ability to make its way between a glass surface and the printed table veneer underneath it. This was not a place you'd want to spend a lazy afternoon in. Proceedings used to go something like this:
  • Enter
  • Queue for a ridiculously long time
  • Order
  • Wait
  • Wait some more
  • Receive order from a server who looked as though he'd grown up in an Oliver Twist era poor house
  • Eat lukewarm chicken purely because you knew you'd be letting Harland down if you didn't
  • Feel dirty
So it comes as an extremely pleasant surprise that Lancaster KFC has finally been refurbished. Imagine the looks of joy on our faces when our Northern correspondent first informed us. "What would they alter?" we wondered. "Will we ever be able to enjoy our lukewarm chicken on the kiddie table again?". Our answers were forthcoming upon the reopening in February: "It's exactly the same" our misinformed correspondent told us. Saddened by this news, it was with a heart full of sorrow and a head full of low expectations that we made our way back to KFC.

Lancaster KFC sits at the very peak of what we can refer to as the town centre, thus rendering it visible from a great distance and causing it to act as an extremely gratifying welcome to the town itself. Even from this great distance, we could tell our correspondent was severely misinformed. The signage has been updated with the new branding, the interior completely renovated. Even the kiddie's table has gone (attempts to locate it in skips out the back were unsuccessful). But the best addition? Lancaster KFC now contains two large leather sofas to kick back and enjoy that chicken on. Surely a first for the chain. The Zinger Tower was excellent. Excellent to the degree that long term KFC veteran and contributor to this blog, Dave, said it was the greatest he had ever tasted. This is how fried chicken should be my friends.

8/10

(Northern correspondent is now fired)