There was a time — not that long ago, really — when KFC was the undisputed king of fast food chicken. If you wanted fried chicken and didn’t want to make it yourself, you went to KFC. That was just how it worked. Your grandparents went there. Your parents went there. The red and white bucket was as American as the Fourth of July.
Those days are gone. KFC has now fallen to fifth place among fast food chicken chains in the U.S. by consumer spending, behind Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, Raising Cane’s, and Wingstop. Fifth. The brand that invented this entire category is now getting lapped by a chain that started as a food truck less than a decade ago. And the worst part? If you’ve been to a KFC recently, you probably already know why.
The Sales Numbers Are Brutal
Let’s start with the raw numbers because they tell a clear story. KFC’s U.S. sales dropped 5% in 2024 compared to 2023. That’s not a blip. That’s a trend. The chain has now posted declining domestic same-restaurant sales for six consecutive quarters. In Q1 of 2025, same-store sales dropped 7%. Customer visits fell between 2% and 12% every single quarter throughout 2024 and into 2025.
KFC’s U.S. consumer spending came in at $4.34 billion in 2024, a 4% decline. Meanwhile, every other major chicken chain saw spending go up. Wingstop grew. Raising Cane’s grew. Chick-fil-A grew. Popeyes grew 6%. Zaxby’s grew. Bojangles grew. When literally every competitor in your category is growing and you’re shrinking, you can’t blame the economy or the weather or chicken prices. Something is broken inside the house.
Popeyes Ate KFC’s Lunch
The Popeyes comparison is the one that has to sting the most for KFC executives. For a decade, KFC held the number two spot behind Chick-fil-A. Then Popeyes passed them, and now it’s not even close.
Here’s how lopsided things have gotten: Popeyes’ system sales are up 71% over the past five years. KFC’s? Up 17%. Popeyes added more than 100 locations last year while KFC closed more than 100. The average Popeyes location pulls in $1.8 million in sales. The average KFC does $1.35 million. That’s a $450,000 gap per store.
A lot of this traces back to 2019, when Popeyes launched its chicken sandwich and the internet lost its mind. People were waiting in line for hours. The sandwich sold out everywhere. It kicked off the chicken sandwich wars and brought a flood of new customers into Popeyes stores. KFC didn’t get its own chicken sandwich out until 2021. It was well-received, but they couldn’t keep the momentum going. Two years late to the party, and they still couldn’t figure out what to do once they got there.
Stores Are Closing Across the Country
The closures paint a grim picture. In August 2024, franchisee EYM Chicken shut down around 25 KFC locations across Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. That’s more than half of the 47 stores EYM operated. Almost 100 employees in Wisconsin alone were left without jobs. Similar closures hit Louisiana in late 2023, with workers reportedly getting zero notice that their store was closing until it actually happened. California and New Jersey have also seen closures since 2023.
In December 2024, a KFC in Marion, Iowa that had served the community for 15 years just quietly shut down with no explanation. Every closed location is a spot where Raising Cane’s or Wingstop or Popeyes can move in and pick up those customers. And that’s exactly what’s happening.
The Complaints Are Through the Roof
Here’s a number that should alarm anyone at KFC corporate: the chain receives an average of 5,000 customer complaints per month. Chick-fil-A gets about 500. KFC has roughly 4,000 U.S. locations. Chick-fil-A has about 3,000. So KFC has more stores, fewer customers, and ten times the complaints.
About 80% of those complaints are about food quality and service. Not pricing, not location, not hours — the actual chicken and the experience of buying it. When four out of five complaints are about the two things that matter most at a restaurant, you have a fundamental execution problem. You can rebrand all you want, but if the chicken isn’t good and the service is bad, none of it matters.
The Menu Is a Mess
Walk into a Raising Cane’s. You know what they sell? Chicken fingers. That’s it. There are like six things on the menu. Walk into a Chick-fil-A. Chicken sandwiches and nuggets. Simple. Walk into a KFC and try to figure out what you want. Bone-in? Tenders? Pot pies? Bowls? Wraps? Nuggets? There are so many combinations and sizes and sides that ordering feels like a chore.
The chains that are winning right now — Raising Cane’s, Wingstop, Chick-fil-A — all have focused menus and clear identities. You know exactly what you’re getting and why you’re going there. KFC tries to be everything to everyone and ends up being nobody’s first choice. It’s the classic trap of legacy brands: they keep adding stuff instead of getting really good at a few things.
The Value Equation Doesn’t Work Anymore
KFC rolled out a $5 Meal Deal in 2024. It didn’t move the needle. They launched a “Taste of KFC” value menu. That didn’t work either. They even tried collaborating with streetwear brands, selling $32 shorts with “finger-lickin’ good” embroidered on them. That is not a joke. Thirty-two dollar shorts.
The core problem is that people feel like they’re getting less chicken for more money. The USDA predicts poultry prices will keep climbing for the next decade, and as the biggest chicken chain in the world with over 29,000 locations globally, KFC feels those price increases harder than anyone. When a customer can walk into a grocery store and buy an entire rotisserie chicken for less than a KFC meal, you’ve got a serious perception problem.
International Problems Are Piling Up Too
The U.S. isn’t the only trouble spot. In Turkey, Yum Brands terminated its franchise agreement with operator IS Gida, which led to 283 KFC locations closing at once. IS Gida, which was $214 million in debt, filed for bankruptcy and pointed to boycotts related to the Gaza conflict as a factor, with KFC sales reportedly dropping 40% in the country. KFC Indonesia reported $21.5 million in losses in its first quarter of 2024 — 60 times worse than the year before. Thirteen KFC restaurants closed suddenly in the UK in 2024 as well.
The bright spot is China, where sales surged 8% and there are twice as many KFC locations as in the U.S. Internationally overall, system-wide sales are up 7%. But those global wins can’t mask what’s happening at home.
KFC Is Trying Everything to Turn It Around
Give KFC credit for not sitting still. They’ve cycled through a ton of new leadership — a new CMO, a new COO, a new CFO, a new chief digital officer, a new division CEO, and a new U.S. president all within the last two years. They’re moving headquarters from Kentucky to Texas, partly for tax reasons (Texas taxes company gross sales at 0.331% compared to Kentucky’s 5% corporate tax rate). The biggest franchisee, KBP Brands, laid off 29 employees in late 2024 as part of a restructure.
On the concept side, KFC is testing a tenders-focused restaurant called Saucy that ditches the bone-in chicken entirely, offers 11 sauces, and has a hot pink interior instead of the classic red and white. They’re also testing “KFC Original” — a tech-heavy redesign with more ordering kiosks, a streamlined menu, and a nostalgia-themed interior — in Orlando. Results were promising enough that they’re expanding to Texas locations in 2025.
They even changed the Colonel Sanders image from smiling to serious. As KFC U.S. president Catherine Tan-Gillespie put it, “The Colonel would not be happy about our market share.” They launched a free bucket of chicken promotion with digital orders to try to prove the food has improved.
This Has Been Coming for Twenty Years
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that makes all of this feel so hard to fix: this isn’t new. KFC has been on a multi-decade slide in the United States. They tried a “Re-Colonelization” strategy back in 2016. They’ve had multiple management shakeups. Multiple turnaround campaigns. Multiple menu overhauls. And the needle keeps moving in the wrong direction.
KFC’s market share dropped from 16.1% to 11.3% in just a single recent year. Chick-fil-A’s went from 38.3% to 45.5% in that same period. The average non-mall Chick-fil-A pulls in $8.7 million in sales annually — while closed on Sundays. The average McDonald’s does $3.7 million. These are staggering numbers that make KFC’s $1.35 million average look like a rounding error.
KFC still has 29% buyer penetration, which is higher than Wingstop (19%) and Raising Cane’s (24%). People still know the brand. They just don’t choose it. And that might be the most damning thing of all — everyone knows where KFC is, they just have better options now. The Colonel’s still out there on the sign, staring seriously at passing cars. But fewer and fewer people are pulling into the parking lot.
