Hough Retail Park branch review 24/12/08

After nearly a month of operation, I decided it was time to visit the newest addition to Staffordshire's arsenal of KFC's. I assumed that by now the new team would have had plenty of time to assimilate protocol and most importantly have learned to build a good quality Zinger Tower Burger.

The Hough retail park branch (Stafford's first drive through) was heralded by an article in the local publication the Express & Star. The paper has a circulation of roughly 130,000 so giving the restaurant nestled in the county town's Eastern enclaves a good publicity boost. For months there had been palpable excitement amongst Staffordians who had clearly been whipped up into a frenzy of euphoria by this rousing comment from a KFC spokesman, “We look forward to opening this new restaurant which will offer the convenience of a drive-through facility.” Indeed!

I braved the Christmas eve crowds and arrived at the restaurant shortly after one in the afternoon and took up my place in the queue. I was seventh or eighth from the front and resolved to spend what I assumed would be a short time queuing to visually appraising my surroundings.

The restaurant was beautifully appointed with warm red and orange colours and some seldom seen soft furnishings as well as areas of more traditional seating layouts. However it was around this time that I began to become aware of what would become a litany of errors and failures so large that to be properly managed they would need catalogueing and indexing.

Firstly, the restaurant had made utterly no avowal to the festive period with neither decorations nor any attemp to find a CD of christmas music. This was in sharp contrast to the Loughborough branch I visited on New Years Day, the entire interior of which shimmered with gold and silver decorations.

By this time I became aware of the sluggishness of the queue which had hardly advanced since I took my place in it. I began my second visual sweep of the premesis and saw a sea of litter strewn tables as is so often the case. Slowly I advanced to the head of the line and placed my order of a hot rods box meal with gravy upgraded of course to a zinger tower.

I had calculated the price to be £5.09 upsetting as it breaks the psychological five pound barrier but in fact I was charged only £4.99. This mistake appears to have been head offices who've printed all their Hot Rod box promotional literature with a tower up option at 40p extra and not the 30p which it actually is. I have subsequently noted this has been stickered over.

I left the counter, meal in hand towards the anciliarry items area to furnish myself with napkins, freshen ups, a spork, pepper and a straw. There were however no straws to be found and I was forced to sip from a flimsy cup which of course has lost a lot of its structural integrity when the lid which acts as somewhat of a brace is removed.

I managed to find a clean table and set about unpacking my feast to be greeted not by the gravy I had requested but a pot of coleslaw and neither was there any sign of my cool herb dip. There was one error that worked in my favour but it was an error nevertheless and should not be excused. They had included not one but two hot rods with my meal which I suppose went some small way to compensating me for my suffering.

And the burger? A 5 at best.

In short, a restaurant best avoided

Colonel Sanders, now visible from Uranus

Haha, when I say Uranus, I don't mean your bum. I mean the planet Uranus, outer most of our solar system. You may have now realised that this was indeed a terrible pun to lead into this news piece about the KFC logo being the first to be visible from space - in a publicity stunt to promote the revamped branding, a giant KFC logo was constructed from 65000 giant coloured tiles somewhere in the desert near Area 51. An impressive feat, you must agree. Read here for more informationz.

Scotland: It's a different world

Imagine my surprise and delight upon arriving into Edinburgh last weekend and finding that our hotel was a stone's throw from KFC. But wait, there's more. After a particularly boozy awards bash on Friday night I decided the only sensible cure was to pay the colonel a visit. It would seem Scotland has their own regional variations on the classic menu, including paninis! Both a spicy and italian version were available. Naturally, I opted for the latter in order to provide a better comparison to the almighty Zinger Tower and I have to say, it fared very well indeed. Soft, toasted panini, swiss cheese, a Zinger piece of chicken, sliced in half to fit the panini and salsa. Though you might not be able to tell from my lager-ravaged face, it was delicious.

Kentucky GRILLED Chicken??

It was only a matter of time until the Colonel would have to join other fast food chains in offering a low-fat, healthier menu option. According to Brand Republic, KFC are setting up to release a line in Kentucky Grilled Chicken, already being sampled in Australia. Under the name "Cayan Grill" the grilled chicken meal weighs in at less than half the fat and calorie content of the original recipe chicken. A spokeswoman from KFC UK reported that there were no plans to release the grilled variant in the UK, but this could just be until an official announcement is made.

Colonel's face disfigured, KFBloggers raging

Thanks to an anonymous tip off (and thedailywtf.com), it has come to my attention that Google Streetview is disfiguring the sweet face of our Lord Harland Sanders. Apparently the software recognises the faces of the general public and blurs them for privacy reasons, but will also do so to any signage featuring a distinguishable face. Surely this system should have some kind of built-in understanding that defacing the Colonle is the equivalent of defacing the Queen's face on say, a stamp or bank note?? Somebody should be severely punished for this outrage!