The restaurant will open later this summer in McKinney, Texas, and will include table service and a drive-thru.

KFC U.S. likes what it sees from its spinoff concept Saucy so much that it continues to expand the fledgling brand into new markets, including outside of Florida for the first time since its debut in late 2024.

In fact, David Gibbs, now-retired CEO of parent company Yum Brands, said last year that the chicken tenders-and-sauce-focused Saucy will be one of the catalysts for KFC’s turnaround.

A year or so into that turnaround, it seems as though KFC now has plenty of other catalysts as well. During a recent interview, KFC U.S. President Catherine Tan-Gillespie said the chain is planning to test a new modern prototype called Open House later this summer in the Dallas suburb of McKinney, near Yum’s Plano headquarters.

“We’re taking the idea that we can do all the things with our system, but how do we jolt the system and jump forward a decade?” she said. “What would the reinvention of KFC look like if the (founder) Colonel (Sanders) was here today? How do we take all of his legacy, his DNA, to a next generation concept?”

Details about Open House are minimal at this point, but we know the menu will include both new items and signature items “packaged in a new way.” It will also feature a different experience than a traditional KFC, including table service, a drive-thru, and takeout. The goal is for Open House to inform how future KFC restaurants are built and how existing ones evolve over time.

“We’re looking at channel maximization. There will be digitalization but also a ton of customer experience because hospitality was key when the brand was born,” Tan-Gillespie said. “It’s the idea of serving hot chicken in a warm and welcoming environment with a bold new restaurant design. It’s the reinvention of product, promotion, and place.”

Product, promotion, and place are three out of the four Ps (along with pricing) serving as a roadmap for Tan-Gillespie’s comeback plan, put into place shortly after she was named to her position in April 2025. That plan has started to gain some traction, including three consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth following seven quarters of declines.

Tan-Gillespie said one of the objectives of Open House is to understand what happens if the company “holistically changes all four Ps in one restaurant.”

The initial concept will be company-owned, but she said a KFC franchisee has also agreed to develop one as well. More information is expected soon.

In the meantime, KFC also continues to experiment with new menu concepts, and Tan-Gillespie said there are at least 100 such innovations currently in some phase of consumer testing, most of which were introduced at the company’s global Marketing Planning Meeting, held in early May.

“We’re excited to see some of those happen in the next six to 12 months,” she said.

For now, we know KFC is pushing more aggressively into beverages, including dirty soda. We will also likely see some innovations from the company’s Kwench beverage platform that has expanded in a handful of global markets. In a recent statement, a company spokesperson said, “We are evaluating when Kwench will show up in the U.S.”

Yum’s current CEO Chris Turner also recently told analysts that KFC will offer “expanded flavors through sauces,” leveraging learnings from Saucy.

All this work is facilitated by KFC’s new “Global Innovation Hub,” launched in September. Turner described the hub as a “centralized database of historical products, tested ideas, and Collider concepts that will meaningfully shorten the development cycle.” Collider is a consulting firm Yum acquired over 10 years ago that provides “culture-based consumer insights.”

One thing we shouldn’t hold our breath for is the expansion of KFC China’s KPRO concept into the U.S. KPRO features a high-protein, lower-calorie menu with meals that are low in sugar and salt to cater to Chinese consumer preferences. It recently reached 300 locations in the market and is on track to reach 600 by year’s end.

In an email, a spokesperson from KFC Global wrote, “There are no current plans to expand the KPRO concept beyond China.”

That said, this industry knows better than to never say “never.” The KFC China team attended the annual Marketing Planning Meeting to share local best practices and exchange ideas with other markets.

Editor’s note: The original version of this story indicated that Open House was a spinoff concept from KFC. Rather, it is a new restaurant prototype with modernized features that differ from a traditional KFC restaurant.

Source https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/operations/kfc-plans-test-new-prototype-called-open-house