KFC Open House: Breakfast Menu, Boba, and Table Service Come to McKinney, Texas

KFC is doing the most American thing it has ever done: serving breakfast. The chain’s first-ever “Open House” concept restaurant opens Saturday, September 26 at 8751 El Dorado Parkway in McKinney, Texas — a next-generation test kitchen built to bring the “Kentucky Fried Comeback” to life in a single restaurant.

The food

The headline is breakfast, and it’s a first for KFC in the United States (the chain already serves morning meals internationally). The menu spans savory, sweet, and sippable: breakfast sandwiches, Original Recipe tenders, Hashbrown Sticks, Mini Cronuts, freshly brewed coffee, and iced lattes.

Beyond the morning daypart, Open House runs a different menu from classic KFC, expanding on the famous 11 herbs and spices while keeping heritage intact. Crispy Original Recipe Tenders plus Classic and Premium Sandwiches anchor the new lineup; chicken on the bone and wings stay foundational; and the Original Recipe fried chicken and the iconic bucket remain a mainstay, as always.

The rest reads like a direct response to how people actually order now:

• Bolder sauces — a mix-and-match lineup from the classics (Kentucky BBQ, Buffalo, Ranch) to Jalapeño Ranch, Sweet Heat Ranch, and Garlic Parmesan, with drizzle-your-own options for those who want the flavor built in, not on the side.
• Exclusive beverages — debuting in the U.S. as part of KFC’s global beverage strategy: lemonades, boba refreshers, and Krunch shakes.
• New sides and sweets — Southern staples like Mashed Potatoes & Gravy, Biscuits, and Southwest Corn sit next to Fried Green Beans and Spicy Pickles; Homemade Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Mini Cronuts close the meal.

The format

Open House is a smart house by design: self-order kiosks and digital menu boards, dual drive-thru lanes plus a dedicated mobile pick-up lane, and indoor/outdoor seating for 52 guests. But it’s “digital where it helps, and human where it matters” — the restaurant adds full table service, a more hospitality-first move than KFC has ever attempted at scale.

The design nods to the mid-century modern era in which the KFC brand was born, and the space includes a Swag Bar with exclusive KFC-branded apparel and souvenirs, plus a Celebration Booth with a digitally enhanced photo experience.

What to know before you go

Open daily 6:00 a.m. to midnight CT starting September 26. The grand opening celebration is free and open to the public Sunday, September 27, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., with first tastes of new menu items, giveaways, prizes, and a special guest appearance for the greater Dallas–Fort Worth crowd.

KFC’s own framing is honest about the mission: this is a real restaurant where the company learns what works for guests, teams, and the business — and scales the strongest ideas across the system. If breakfast, boba, and table service land in McKinney, don’t be surprised to see them far beyond Texas.

Why McKinney, why now

The “Kentucky Fried Comeback” is KFC’s answer to a hard few years in the chicken wars — a stretch where rivals ate into its cultural share while the brand leaned on nostalgia. Open House is the comeback made physical: not a rebrand on a press release, but a working laboratory where the company tests whether the format itself is the problem. The breakfast play is the boldest swing — entering the morning daypart is one of the most competitive moves in fast food, and doing it with fried chicken tenders and mini cronuts is about as KFC as it gets.

The beverage strategy deserves its own note. Lemonades, boba refreshers, and Krunch shakes signal that KFC understands the modern quick-service battlefield isn’t just the sandwich — it’s the drink attachment. An elevated beverage program is the industry’s highest-margin lever right now, and Open House is where the chain is learning to pull it.

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