I ate KFC for the first time in years, and I see why a turnaround effort is needed

I recently visited KFC for the first time in 15 years, chasing nostalgia — and left with no desire to return. A week later, another location surprised me with a fried feast that actually hit the spot. Then, at a third stop, the food landed somewhere in between.

The problem, I realized, isn’t what’s on the menu. It’s that KFC can’t seem to serve the same meal twice.

In mid-July, the company launched its “Kentucky Fried Comeback” turnaround campaign after years of losing ground to competitors like Popeyes and Raising Cane’s.

Executives know this is a critical moment for the 72-year-old chain to reclaim its former fast food glory. Sales have been down year over year in most quarters since 2023. And customer satisfaction slipped 5% in 2024, the American Customer Satisfaction Index found.

Catherine Tan-Gillespie, president of KFC US, previously told Business Insider that consumer sentiment and customer satisfaction scores have slipped, and the brand needs a makeover to keep up with shifting tastes.

The turnaround effort is to show customers that the company is changing, Tan-Gillespie said last month at the start of the campaign. “If you can give your exes a million second chances, why not give KFC a second chance? We’re really worth the try,” she said.

I have a deep nostalgia for visiting the dual A&W-KFC location near my hometown after middle school volleyball games. So, more than a decade after my last visit, I went to see how the comeback effort — featuring new menu items, planned renovations, celebrity partnerships, and the reintroduction of the brand mascot, Colonel Sanders — is going in its early days.

My meals, which varied radically between locations across three different counties in Southern California, showed me that KFC has its work cut out for it.

“A key initiative of our Kentucky Fried Comeback Plan is making every guest experience consistent, convenient, and craveable,” a spokesperson for KFC told Business Insider. The corporate KFC offices set “clear brand standards across food, service, and hospitality” to ensure consistency across its franchised locations and have quality control measures in place, “such as daily checks via a mobile app on routines, ongoing operations scorecard tracking, and independent third-party audits several times a year.”

Santa Barbara County

At a location on California’s Central Coast in mid-August, the tables and chairs were clean. There was a distinct smell of stale frying oil, and the dark red paint on the walls was peeling. Two other customers stopped by the restaurant during the 45 minutes while I dined.

Social media reviews of this location, dating back to 2017, indicate it needs a facelift, and I agree. Tan-Gillespie told me last month that renovations to existing locations would be announced soon.

I ordered through the KFC Rewards app, picking fried pickles, extra crispy chicken with a waffle, and a pair of biscuits. I also selected a Famous Bowl “Fill Up” box, an $8.24 combo meal with good value that included a drink and Apple Pie Poppers — bite-sized apple turnovers with flaky pie crust.

Because my order cost more than $15 (the total was $24.35), I also received a free eight-piece bucket of chicken tenders as part of the comeback promotion.

The Famous Bowl, once my go-to entrée, didn’t hit the nostalgic note I’d hoped for. It had soggy chicken bites and a tinny aftertaste to the corn that made it seem like the kernels had been dumped into the meal straight from a can. The waffle was disappointingly dense, and although the biscuit was tasty, both the bone-in fried chicken and the tenders were not crispy, and had flaky, soft breading that didn’t stick to the protein.

I also sampled one of KFC’s new drinks: a Dr Pepper with sweet vanilla cream, designed to attract Gen Z fans of customizable sodas with mix-ins. The syrup was too sweet for my liking and thickly concentrated toward the bottom of the cup.

Walking out of the restaurant, I couldn’t help notice the gap between what KFC is aiming for and what it’s delivering.

Los Angeles County

The second location in the San Fernando Valley was bright and airy. The light paint job and recently refurbished signage felt inviting.

My meal was remarkably more delicious than the first stop. The extra-crispy, bone-in fried chicken blew my expectations out of the water. The Famous Bowl didn’t taste quite as I remembered but had a fresher flavor and fried chicken pieces that held up better to the mashed potatoes and gravy. The biscuit was fluffier than the one at the prior store, and while I still didn’t care for the waffle, it was tastier than the first location.

By the time I ate here, potato wedges — an old fan favorite — had been re-released. My order had been fried well, and I found myself returning to the box to nibble on more as I sampled the rest of the menu items.

I’m not typically a Mountain Dew drinker, but I also tried the limited-edition Sweet Lightning Peaches and Cream Soda — the sweet cream mix-in just wasn’t for me.

There was far more foot traffic at this location, and I could immediately see why.

Ventura County

The first store disappointed, the second delighted, and the third stop landed somewhere in the middle.

The Ventura County location had a refreshed and welcoming interior. It was the only one of the three stores with a digital ordering kiosk, which functioned smoothly, and a drive-thru, which had a line when I arrived.

I repeated the staples of my order, with an added side of the recently re-released Hot and Spicy Wings. I also skipped the sweet cream mix-in to my soda, opting for a plain fountain drink, which I preferred.

Every item at the third location was squarely satisfactory — neither phenomenal nor disappointing. The fried chicken was warm and crispy, the biscuit fluffy, and the potato wedges a little softer than I’d prefer but still worth a second bite.

After three stops, what stood out most wasn’t the menu itself but the uneven experience from one restaurant to the next.

If the “Kentucky Fried Comeback” is going to work, KFC has to prove it can deliver the same quality no matter where its customers walk through the door. And until the chicken can measure up across every store, KFC will simply be putting new feathers on the same old bird.

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