To people of a certain age (and perhaps from a certain part of the world) Kenny Rogers is forever a country music icon, whose songs such as “The Gambler” and duets with Dolly Parton like “Islands in The Stream” are the stuff of legend. To other people, specifically those currently hungry and wandering around Al Ghurair Centre in Deira, his legend is perhaps a little different. Three words: Kenny Rogers Roasters.
Of course we’re being facetious. Rogers is a Grammy, Emmy and multiple other award-winning artist who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2013, seven years before his death aged 81. However, the success of his chicken restaurants is certainly not, well, poultry (sorry), building a chain that would rise and fall in the US, but thrive across Asia and the Middle East.
Which leads us to the curious case of Rogers, with an estimated 120 million albums sold worldwide (making him one of the biggest-selling artists of all-time), being better known here for, well, chicken. We’ll say this for him, the restaurant that opened in the UAE seven months ago is absolutely thriving if the lunchtime queues are anything to go by.
The great chicken war of the ’90s
The brand originated in 1991, with Kentucky entrepreneur John Y. Brown Jr.—who had previously worked with KFC—approaching Rogers, who had just released a cookbook, to work together on the restaurant. And lo, the ‘Chicken Wars’ of the 1990s began, with a number of brands emerging to rival Colonel Sanders and Rogers for supremacy. If it had been happening today it would have ended in a cage fight screened live on Elon Musk’s X, and rightly so.
As it was, Rogers and Brown’s take on healthier roasted chicken as opposed to the fried variety initially gathered momentum, opening in Florida in 1991 and amassing a 425-restaurant chain by 1996, which Brown then sold to the Malaysia-based Berjaya Group.
Starring on Seinfeld
Kenny Rogers Chicken had a popularity that even led to a presence on Seinfeld—at the time one of the biggest TV shows in the world—the episode called “The Chicken Roaster” (season 8, episode 8), saw the unusually bright restaurant signage send Kramer and Jerry a little out of control, and quite mad for Rogers’ chicken.
Rogers’ gamble fails
Despite that success, ultimately, Colonel Sanders had the US in his fine finger-lickin’ grip, and the brand simply didn’t stick. Two years later, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was bought in 1998 by Nathan’s Famous, Inc. for $1.25 million, who then sold it in 2008 to their Asian franchisee, Roasters Asia Pacific (Cayman) Limited, a company actually owned by Berjaya Group of Malaysia.
A legacy in Asia and the Middle East
While the last restaurant closed in the US almost 12 years ago, Kenny Rogers Roasters is alive and well across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, China, the Philippines and of course, the UAE, where the brand hopes to open more restaurants very soon. But while Rogers himself may now be gone, his legacy remains. He’s the guy with a beard who does a rather nice rotisserie-roasted chicken and freshly baked homemade muffin.
Some decent songs, too.