Kennedy Fried Chicken

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Kennedy Fried Chicken

Type	Private
Founded	1979 (New York City)
Founder	Taeb Zia and Abdul Karim^[1]
Headquarters	New York City
Industry	Fast food
Products	Chicken and related Southern foods

Kennedy Fried Chicken is a restaurant chain in the New York-Newark, New Jersey area, but others may also be spotted in nearby smaller cities or towns along the Northeastern United States.

Kennedy Fried Chicken was founded in 1979 in the city of New York. During the 1980s and 90s many of the same restaurants have opened in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and several other states. A very similar restaurant by the name of Kansas Fried Chicken has even appeared in Manchester, England. Their total number is roughly estimated to be approximately 1,000. For the most part the restaurants share the same concept, if not the same menus. They don't just sell fried chicken but also specialize in fried fish, hot wings, short ribs, shrimps, burgers, pizza, all sorts of sandwiches and heros, fries, corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, onion rings, sweet potato pies and a variety flavors of ice cream for dessert.^[2]

Food at many of the inner-city restaurants is served from behind bulletproof glass. Its specialties is its deep-fried chicken (described as "not too dry or too soggy") and is believed to be halal, which means permissible according to the Islamic law.^[3] Given its inner-city roots, chicken and food is quite often ordered a la carte. The menu provided with takeout and delivery orders does not include all the restaurant's offerings, which are usually posted on its walls with accompanying large color photographs of the actual items.

The restaurants are traditionally owned and operated by Afghan Americans but are not formally connected, although their menus and prices are similar.^[4] This lack of centralized control has posed huge problems for KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) in New York. Since the 1990s, KFC has tried to enforce trademark rules against the restaurants, which often use the KFC abbreviation and have been known to decorate their restaurants in red and white colors, similar to that of KFC.

The Kennedy restaurants have worked their way into New York restaurant lore in much the same manner as Ray's Pizza, which is also a collection of restaurants under the same name but not the same control. The cat-and-mouse game with KFC has resulted in some restaurants changing their names or using blue color instead of red. The following is a partial list of restaurants affiliated with Kennedy Fried Chicken: