Dixie Lee Fried Chicken
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dixie Lee is a typical fried chicken fast-food restaurant which was founded in Belleville, Ontario in 1964. Mr. Silvester is the president of the privately held company. He started in the business in 1970 as an owner/operator of a single Dixie Lee outlet in Castlegar, British Columbia. He then acquired a Dixie Lee Area Franchise for British Columbia where he opened and sold 17 franchises. After developing British Columbia, he was successful in purchasing the Dixie Lee franchise parent company in 1979. This facilitated Mr. Silvester's move to Dixie Lee's Head Office in Belleville, Ontario. He was responsible for developing Dixie Lee from 8 stores in Ontario to more than 50 stores by 1987.
Today, Dixie Lee has more than 75 stores in Canada with sales in excess of 55 million dollars per year. Dixie Lee is ranked by the Food and Hospitality Industry as the 4th largest chicken franchise company in Canada.
[edit] Franchise coverage
His restaurant now also covers New Brunswick and British Columbia, and covers a part of Quebec. Expansion plans were made to bring Dixie to the United states, with 1 store open and 7 more to come in the next 2 years.
The first Dixie Lee in Caraquet, New Brunswick was located at the same place Cinéma Vidéo is right now, next the the Enfant-Jésus hospital and the Pétro-Canada gas station. , It got moved to a bigger building in the mid-90's, taking the place of the Greenberg clothing store, who decided to move in the St-Pierre Mall. That store closed soon after. Restaurants not far from there, in Shippagan and Tracadie-Sheila, also opened. The one of Tracadie-Sheila is one of the biggest Dixie Lee in New Brunswick, and one of the first to include a drive-through.
A new one in Moncton recently re-opened. Some sources says it got closed because of bad managment, while others are saying that the high price/quality ratio was a major part of the failure. This franchise also has a drive-through that will, in recent news, never be in service. This building was owned by Dairy Queen before they moved to their new location further on Mountain Road, next to Boston Pizza and Princess Auto.
[edit] Non-uniformity of the taste
The biggest complain about customers is mainly about the non-uniformiity with the taste of the food. Even though they serve the same kind of meal, the taste of every restaurant is not always the same. Some examples of those differences are the clams that they used in Shédiac, which is captured locally, and the recipe of the coleslaw and macaroni salad, which is sometimes a lot different between restaurants. Some comments from this web site shows that the taste of the food is better in the Maritimes than in Ontario. A lot of customers also admits that the franchises in the Acadian Peninsula (New Brunswick) has a difference in the quality of the food, regardless on how close they are.
