According a Wikipedia entry, Kennedy Fried Chicken is a loosely-affiliated sort of franchise operation typically owned by people from Bihar, a largely Hindi state in the easternmost edge of India near Nepal. An entry on Answers.com describes owners as typically coming from Afghanistan, noting that window signs in stores often advertise halal meat slaughtered in accordance with sharia (an interpretation of Muslim law).
The Wikipedia entry mentions that the names for such franchises vary from Kennedy Fried Chicken to Kennedy Pizza & Chicken, Kansas Fried Chicken, and JFK Fried Chicken. The idea apparently is that these are names Americans—black and white alike—can trust. UrbanDictionary.com defines Kennedy Fried Chicken (along with its alter ego, Crown Fried Chicken) as "a ghetto neighborhood staple."
Today’s Republican reports that two Kennedy Fried Chicken restaurants in Springfield and Holyoke are "undergoing scrutiny" stemming from recent shootings at the locations. From the article, by reporters Jack Flynn, Michael Burke and Marla Goldberg:
Springfield police report 143 calls since the Kennedy Fried Chicken opened at 1673 Main St. in 2004. The owners, who also run another outlet on 130 Walnut St., could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The business is listed as simply Kennedy Fried Chicken in the application filed yesterday with the city license officials. But the Massachusetts Secretary of State‘s office lists (PDF) the owners as 786 Three Partners Inc. of Springfield. In a 2003 filing with the city Health and Human Services Office, the restaurant identifies its owners as the Kalam Corp., based in Worcester.
Also early on January 1 this week, a Kennedy Fried Chicken in the Bronx (where such restaurants are even more common) also ran into some difficulties. According to reports both in the New York Times and the online Gothamist, the restaurant owner tore a hole in the wall with a hammer between his establishment and the Twin Donuts next door. (Not this kind, but this kind.) The story also made it into the Boston Herald this week, among other papers that picked it up from the Associated Press. From the Times report by Jennifer Lee:
Then, he sprayed gasoline that he had put in a 32-ounce fruit juice container through the hole and ignited it with a match, [NYC fire marshal Robert] Pinto said. The Kennedy Fried Chicken owner then closed his store and left, he said.
Firefighters arrived shortly after 4 a.m. on Monday to a two-alarm fire. The flames had destroyed the doughnut shop and damaged part of the fried chicken store, Mr. Pinto said.
The fire marshal summed up the situation thusly:
“The chicken guy was mad at the doughnut guy because the doughnut guy started selling fried chicken, and the doughnut guy was undercutting the chicken guy’s prices by 50 cents a plate,” Mr. Pinto said.
“The chicken guy was losing a lot of business and he had gotten some violations from the Health Department. So he was going to plan on shutting his business down and renovating to correct the health code violations. At the same time he was feuding with the doughnut guy, telling the doughnut guy not to sell the chicken.”
As long as the restaurants are not linked formally as franchises, we have Google to do it for us.
Fried chicken joint photos by Mike at Satan’s Laudromat, shared under a Creative Commons license.
