Kentucky Fried goodbye: KFC’s headquarters are moving out of Louisville
First they took the Kentucky out of KFC; now they’re taking KFC out of Kentucky.
The company known until the 1990s as Kentucky Fried Chicken, is leaving the state.
Yum! Brands, the parent of KFC U.S., announced Feb. 18 the headquarters of the chicken chain founded by Col. Harland Sanders will be leaving Louisville for Texas.
The company said the move is designed “to foster greater collaboration among brands and employees.”
KFC has been based in Louisville since 1997.
“This strategic decision will involve relocating KFC U.S. corporate office employees currently in Louisville, Kentucky, to the KFC and Pizza Hut Global headquarters in Plano, Texas. In addition, U.S.-based remote employees will be asked to relocate to the campus where their work happens,” Yum! Brands said in a news release.
The relocation will involve about 100 KFC corporate employees, whose jobs will move over the next six months, according to the release. Another 90 remote positions will be relocated over the next 18 months.
Yum! Brands and the KFC Foundation will retain corporate offices in Louisville.
Additionally, KFC plans to build a first-of-its-kind flagship restaurant in Louisville, and the company will provide a $1 million endowment to the College of Business at the University of Louisville for scholarships throughout Kentucky, according to company officials.
Kentucky Fried Chicken began with Sanders, who sold fried chicken out of service stations in Nicholasville and Corbin. He eventually perfected a pressure cooker method and a secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices that catapulted his chicken to international fame.
He sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Sr. and Jack C. Massey in 1964. It changed hands many times before being consolidated with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell when PepsiCo spun off its restaurant division in 1997 into what was rebranded as Yum! Brands 2002.
Today, KFC has more than 30,000 restaurants in 150 countries and is considered the second-largest restaurant chain in the world, behind only McDonald’s.
This story was originally published February 18, 2025 at 3:21 PM.
