Movement at the old KFC

Don Bowling, owner of the building, and his son Josh are painting the roof on the former KFC at the south end of town.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

Don Bowling owned and operated the Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) on US 68 at the south end of town for twenty years before he decided to shut it down due to problems with the KFC parent corporation.

"This place was a goldmine," Bowling said in a recent interview. "People think I shut it down because it was losing money. That couldn't be farther from the truth."

According to Bowling, who owns six other KFCs around the region, the corporation wanted him to make $250,000 in improvements to continue operating the restaurant. He just didn't want to do it, he said. So he shut down and, for more than a year, has been trying to rent the building as something other than a restaurant with no success.

When the Blog caught up with Bowling, he and his son Josh were painting the roof, covering the corporate red with earth tones, "so it doesn't look like a KFC anymore."

For one year, Bowling was legally bound by his contract with KFC not to operate on the premises as a restaurant. Now that the year is up, he can lease or sell it for that purpose or, if he chooses, operate it as a restaurant himself. So he has been cleaning up the property, making repairs, painting and will soon install kitchen equipment he has had in storage from other restaurants he has owned.

If someone wants to operate the building as a restaurant, he will throw in the kitchen equipment as part of the deal, he said. If no one takes him up on the offer, he will open another restaurant there himself.

"It's a shame to have it sitting here vacant," he said.