KFC opens new concept store in Parramatta, Sydney

WHEN you think of KFC, you think of buckets of fried chicken and cricket, not quinoa and corn salsa. What’s going on at this new concept store?

WHEN you think of KFC, you think of garish red and white plastic interiors, buckets of deep fried chicken and a brand aimed at busy families with kids, or people too lazy to cook.

But now there’s a whole new segment KFC wants to appeal to — ‘grown ups’.

The fast food chain has opened the doors on a new concept store in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta. Here, you won’t find the outdated 1980s decor, value combo meals or tubs of potato and gravy. What you get instead is a streamlined menu with jalapeño, quinoa and corn salsa, as well as succulents and chilli plants on your table.

The aesthetic of the restaurant looks like come out of a design magazine with funky pendant lamps and colour palette more suited to a trendy cafe. Of course, the signature red is sprinkled throughout the site, as well as a stencilled portrait of the Colonel on the back of bathroom doors.

It’s part of new wave of more ‘bespoke’ experiences designed by big, mainstream chains to appeal to a more ‘discerning’ customer.

You never would’ve picked quinoa and jalapeño as part of KFC’s menu.

McDonald’s opened a cafe in the inner-west Sydney suburb of Camperdown a couple of months ago called The Corner. It serves fancier fare like chipotle pulled pork and balsamic strawberry craft soda but the only sign that’s it’s a McDonald’s is a tiny ‘McCafe’ logo out the front.

This KFC is different. It doesn’t want you to forget you’re in a KFC. The acronym-ed name is right out the front and the logo is present in various parts of the interior.

What KFC wants is for you to experience a new facet of the brand, and hopefully take positive associations from it and supplement it with what you already know about its fried chicken. While its packaging has been ‘urbanised’ to raw cardboard and wooden cutlery, the KFC logo is still stamped on its surface.

Bigger burgers in a cardboard tray — very trendy. But the KFC part is still there.

It’s also still serving chicken pieces as well as its burgers, although the burgers are 30 per cent larger than your standard KFC burger. There’s also a liquor licence application in the works but that’s yet to be granted by the NSW state government.

Nikki Lawson, chief marketing and development officer at Yum Foods, KFC’s parent company, told news.com.au that the concept store wasn’t about moving away from its core brand values, nor did it have much to do with any change in consumer tastes. It’s more about finding a successful business model for smaller sites in more built-up areas.

The creamy aoili bowl. Yum.

“We have a very successful freestanding drive-through model and it works on big sites to the general Australian public,” she said. “[Those stores] are very family-centric and lots of young people, it’s a big mix.

“The problem is you need big parcels of land — because we cook so we tend to need big kitchens. We’ve never been able to make the business model work that well for us in smaller locations. We don’t have nearly as many small stores as we should have. If you wander around the CBD, we’re grossly under-represented compared to suburban areas.

“So it’s a project that we’ve dubbed around the world as the ‘small-box project’ and it’s about whether you can make a KFC work in a smaller footprint in these locations. This is KFC. It’s everything you know and love about KFC but it’s just been ‘niched’ a little more to an adult consumer. It’s not a different concept and it’s not meant to have a different spirit.”

Aaron, the restaurant manager, in front of fancier counters.

The Parramatta location was chosen to appeal to working adults with more ‘sophisticated’ tastes. The store is on the fringe of the suburb’s ‘eat street’ and is within walking distance from the transport hub.

“I think working individuals in these more urban settings tend to have a slightly more sophisticated taste so you can experiment with them a little more in the ingredients. Our new product development team has this mantra of ‘excite me but don’t scare me’, and I think that’s the way consumers look at food,” Ms Lawson said.

The Parramatta store, which opens today, will serve as a test case. Ms Lawson said the benchmark for success will be return on investment. She said that if it opens close to predictions, they’ll look for more sites.

KFC concept stores have been tested in overseas markets with varying degrees of success.

You still get moist towelettes. But the planter boxes are a new experience.