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Sunday, 27 March 2022

KFC is redesigning its restaurants. Some will have dual drive-thru lanes and a separate entrance for online orders – take a look inside.

KFC Next Gen restaurant — The interior of a KFC Next-Gen restaurant in Baldwin Park, California.
KFC

KFC is redesigning its restaurants as more customers order online and at drive-thrus.
Some of the new sites will have dual drive-thru lanes and a separate entrance for online orders.
There'll be dedicated parking spots for online orders and delivery drivers, too.

KFC is rolling out a new restaurant design as more customers order their chicken to take home. The restaurants are adapted to surging demand for delivery, drive-thru, and advance ordering.

KFC Next Gen restaurant design — The exterior of a drive-thru KFC Next-Gen restaurant in Berea, Kentucky.
KFC

Source: Insider

KFC opened the first of its Next Gen restaurants in Berea, Kentucky in 2021. It's since opened six more, and told Insider that initial feedback from staff, customers, and franchisees has been "very positive."

KFC told Insider that the new design aimed to make its brand "more modern" and create a "more forward-looking, more efficient restaurant inside and out that optimizes all access points to KFC."

The Next-Gen model is split into two models – drive-thru restaurants and inline restaurants, which will be in more urban areas.

KFC Next Gen restaurant interior — The interior of an inline KFC Next-Gen restaurant in Baldwin Park, California.
KFC

The ones with drive-thrus will focus largely on off-premise consumption. Some of these won't have dining rooms, just a lobby for customers and delivery drivers to pick up their orders, meaning they'll be much smaller than normal KFC restaurants. The smallest will be 1,300 square feet, KFC said.

The features will vary between sites but some will have a separate entrance for online orders and delivery drivers.

There'll be dedicated parking spots for online orders and delivery drivers, too.

KFC drive thru next generation prototype — A mock-up of the parking lot at a KFC Next Gen restaurant.
KFC

Source: Insider

Some restaurants will have collection cubbies for customers who placed orders online, too. KFC said that digital sales at its US restaurant grew approximately 70% in 2021.

The Berea location boasts the chain's first-ever dual-lane drive thru. KFC told Insider that drive-thru makes up around 70% of its total US sales.

"Drive-thru continues to be our biggest channel, and hence Next Gen focuses on elevating the drive-thru experience via visual and digital tools," a KFC spokesperson told Insider.

The double lanes are just for ordering, though. The drive-thru lines will merge into one to pay and collect their orders at the window.

Source: Insider

KFC told Insider that it planned to open around 110 new restaurants in the US in 2022, of which between five and ten would be urban inline stores and the rest would be traditional free-standing drive-thru restaurants.

Around 30% of the restaurants in KFC's construction pipeline will be Next-Gen sites, KFC told Insider. It currently has around 4,000 restaurants in the US.

KFC opened almost 2,000 net new restaurants in 2021, bringing its total count to just under 27,000. KFC's parent company said that this was a "record development year" for the brand, with large growth in China, India, and Russia.