At Seat of Communist Power, Kentucky Fried Chicken : ‘Finger-Lickin’ Good’ Comes to Beijing

The world’s largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant officially opened Thursday on a corner of Tian An Men Square, the richly symbolic center of Chinese Communist power.

From the windows of the three-story, 500-seat fast-food eatery, customers look out over Chairman Mao Tse-tung’s mausoleum, the Great Hall of the People and the Monument to the People’s Heroes.

At the far end of the huge plaza can be glimpsed Tian An Men--the Gate of Heavenly Peace--where Mao’s portrait gazes out over the heart of China’s rapidly changing capital city.

“I think it’s the start of the new China,” said Klaus Sondergaard, 25, a tourist from Denmark, as he munched a piece of chicken Thursday. Sondergaard said he heard of the restaurant and came partly because “it sounds quite funny.”

‘Cultural Imperialism’

“It shows the strength of American imperialism--not political imperialism, but cultural imperialism,” said another Danish tourist, Soren Damlov, 20. “I think it ruins a little bit of the atmosphere around the most important national monuments of China.”

But many Chinese customers Thursday were impressed by the restaurant, which faithfully reproduces the cuisine, decor and atmosphere of Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in the United States. On a wall, Chinese characters proclaim the familiar “It’s finger-lickin’ good” slogan-- haodao shun shouzhi-- “So good you suck your fingers.”

“The chicken is very tender,” said a retired engineer. “The price is OK too. It’s convenient. Some restaurants in Beijing shut down in the afternoon. Here it’s open all day. Sanitary conditions also are something we care about. When we eat out, we’re afraid if it’s dirty.

“And the service attitude is very good here,” he continued. “Attitude is very important. I don’t want to pay money if I’m going to be badly treated, even if the food is good.”

Kentucky Fried Chicken officials believe that they have found an almost perfect spot. Tian An Men Square is visited by many thousands of people every day, and the restaurant is at a corner of the square that leads to a shopping district with insufficient restaurants to serve the crowds.

“This is the best location in the world, so we built the largest Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the world,” Tony Wang, a regional vice president of Kentucky Fried Chicken International, explained at a press conference.

Steven Fellingham, president of Kentucky Fried Chicken International, said the restaurant is expected to serve more than 45,000 meals a week, one of the highest volumes of any outlet anywhere.

Thursday’s opening ceremonies featured speeches by Beijing Vice Mayor Sun Fuling, U.S. Ambassador Winston Lord and Kentucky Fried Chicken Chairman Richard Mayer. The festivities were enlivened by an acrobatic lion dance performed to the beat of drums and cymbals.

The restaurant--the first in China of a Western fast food chain--began serving customers several weeks before Thursday’s official opening. It has been drawing about 2,000 to 3,000 patrons a day, according to Xia Jue, chairman of Beijing Kentucky Co. Ltd.

The company is a joint venture of Kentucky Fried Chicken with two Chinese enterprises under the Beijing city government, one dealing with livestock and the other with tourism. The American chain, which holds a 60% interest in the venture, plans to reinvest profits to establish outlets in other Chinese cities.

Two pieces of “Kentucky hometown chicken,” as it is called in Chinese, plus a roll costs 5.40 yuan, about $1.45. A full meal of three pieces of chicken, roll, cole slaw and mashed potato with gravy goes for 9.40 yuan, or about $2.50.

A typical worker in Beijing makes about 110 yuan a month, so a meal can easily take a day’s wages.

Outside the restaurant Thursday afternoon, a worker in a blue coat and green trousers studied the menu, then turned to walk away.

“It’s too expensive to eat here,” he said.

But Chinese patrons inside said that eating out at any Beijing restaurant is expensive and that Kentucky Fried Chicken is cheaper than most other clean and modern restaurants in the city.

“I can’t come often,” said Huang Nian, 21, an employee of a pharmaceutical institute. “But I don’t go out so often. If you want to eat out, basically you have to spend a day’s wages. When it’s convenient for me, I’ll come again. The chicken was very good.”

Not all patrons were so impressed.

Three Tibetans sat quietly at a corner table, looking slightly ill at ease as they sipped coffee, the only thing they had ordered.

“We saw that this was an American restaurant and wanted to come in and see it,” said the youngest of the three, a man in his mid-20s. “The coffee’s not very good. But it was worth coming in.”