Finger Licking Good

Simon Stabler investigates the early days of the one of the UK's first fast-food chains

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The city of Preston has witnessed many firsts: local side Preston North End were the first Football League champions, and the first team to win the League and FA Cup “double”; the first motorway went around the city; and, 60 years ago this month, the first UK branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken opened there.

It was established by Lancashire restaurateur Ray Allen, who had met KFC’s founder, Colonel Harland Sanders, at an International Restaurant Association conference in Chicago. The two got on well, with Allen, advising the colonel on patents and other legal issues.

Allen, like Sanders, became a Kentucky Colonel, the Commonwealth of Kentucky's highest honour, and successfully acquired the rights to market KFC outside of North America. The colonel also gave him a handwritten note containing KFC’s “secret” recipe of 11 herbs and spices. With the assistance of accountant Harry Latham, Allen cashed in insurance policies and remortgaged his other business premises to raise the capital needed and acquired a former clothing store at 92 Fishergate, in the heart of Preston's shopping district.

Despite Allen’s belief in the pressure-fried, battered chicken, initial business was poor.

“It was very difficult even to get people to come through the door,” recalled Allen in an interview with the Daily Express. “We would walk up and down the street offering pieces of chicken free. But people are terribly suspicious. We couldn't even give it away.”