Salt Lake City, UT: The World's First Kentucky Fried Chicken
It was in 1951 that Colonel Harlan Sanders met Leon "Pete" Harman in Chicago at a restaurateurs convention. At the time, Sanders owned "Sanders Court & Cafe" in Corbin, KY, while Harman owned "Harman Cafe" in South Salt Lake.
The following year, Sanders visited Harman in Salt Lake City, and introduced his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. After Sanders cooked up a batch of chicken, they agreed on a deal to serve the Colonel's chicken in Harman's restaurant.
The first thing Harman needed was a name for the fried chicken dish, finally settling on "Kentucky Fried Chicken", since Sanders was from Kentucky. The Colonel would earn $0.05 for each piece of chicken sold.
It was a success.
People waited in lines to get some of the Colonel's famous chicken. In the years following, Harman streamlined his restaurant to serve up more chicken, including introducing a take-out version and the famous bucket of chicken. Both Sanders and Harman worked together to create the present-day Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant model. To this day, all KFC outlets are based on the Harman model.
Harman's Cafe still exists, though today it's been remodeled into a prototypical looking KFC. However. the location on the corner of State Street and 3300 South is more like a hybrid restaurant and museum.
There's a bronze statue of Colonel Sanders and Pete Harman outside, smiling as they watch hundreds of thousands of hungry chicken masticators enter through the doors. Inside are several old photos of the Colonel and Harman posing together, along with photos of the original restaurant, menus, and newspaper clips. On display is one of the actual white suits that Sanders wore, along with one of his original pressure cookers. There's a few display cases of old KFC memorabilia, while several of the tables are laden with old photos and tidbits of KFC history. You can buy KFC souvenirs there too.
The first KFC in the World is no longer owned by Pete Harman. It's now owned by Tracy Gingell, who's run the restaurant the past 20 years. However, the worldwide success of KFC has turned his outlet into a tourist mecca. While Sash and I were there, several Chinese came in to peruse the restaurant's historical offerings. Apparently, the Chinese regard Colonel Sanders and KFC as some kind of mythical "Old West" Americana much in the way Americans regard the Dalai Lama. Beijing regularly sends its tourists to "Harman's Cafe" to re-energize their Chakras with the 11 herbs and spices.
World's First Kentucky Fried Chicken
3890 South State Street
Salt Lake City, UT 84115
(801) 266-4431
https://plus.google.com/102716617283067980186/
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| Bronze statue of Colonel Sanders and Pete Harman greet customers |
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| The iconic bucket of chicken redecorated for the World's First KFC |
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| Pete Harman's brief case from the 1960s |
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| What Harman's Cafe used to look like in the 1950s |
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| Bucket of Chicken over the decades |
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| One of the original menus from Harman's Cafe |
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| Some Chinese tourists snapping photos for their comrades back home. |
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| The picture on the wall is missing two photos. These were removed by "Beulah", a ghost who haunts this KFC location. She was very active within the old building. When it was rebuilt into the present-day building, she became less active. However, one morning the two missing photos were found on the floor below, and it's believed she took them. Beulah was the mother of a KFC employee. |
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| One of the displays cases in the restaurants show old Colonel Sanders memorabilia |
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| Many of the tables have old photos and tidbits of history lacquered into them. |
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| Inside the World's First KFC |
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| Behind Highway is one of the actual white suits worn by Colonel Sanders |
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| Sash standing with Tracy Gingell, current owner of World's First KFC |
Cool write-up. I grew-up in Louisville, KY (home of the modern day corporate office for KFC) and I would have never guessed there was a Utah connection. You guys amaze me at the interesting things and places you've found along the way. Stay safe...happy trails. ~Curt
ReplyDeleteThis is arguable. The Colonel was serving his chicken in Corbin, Ky long before Utah, but his restaurant wasn't called KFC.
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