KFC Quiet About Mysteriously Closed Flint Store, Rumors Swirl

Over the weekend I noticed some online chatter about the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Dort and Davison being permanently closed, and a handful of unusual stories going around about the sudden and quiet move. I decided to look into it.

The Flint KFC location has been there for some time, and it always seemed unusual to have two KFC's in such close proximity. There is another one not even 2 miles up the road at Dort and Lapeer, but for many many years -- that's the way it was.

Many locals were confused by the mysterious closure of the Flint KFC, as seen in many a Facebook post just like the following:

Aside from the confusion about the sudden closing of the restaurant, there was also some obvious misinformation and at least one wild rumor floating about:

There were no news reports of a death at the restaurant. In fact, there are no mentions of that KFC in the news at all. I became even more suspicious when contacting the KFC people via their 1-800 number. They said they were "unable to comment on that" and that there was no one they could direct me to "at this time." Now I was really interested, so I contacted the KFC at Lapeer and Davison, whose employees claimed to have no knowledge of the reasons behind the closure, but did say it happened about three weeks ago.

Just as it seemed we'd never solve this deep fried mystery, I remembered the old saying "when in doubt, call the neighbor." Actually, I have no idea if that's an old saying. I'm pretty sure I just made it up. Either way -- it worked.

I contacted a neighboring business, that shall remain nameless, whose employee seemed to know quite a bit about the closure... and it wasn't because of anything as diabolical as a suicide cover-up. The employee said that they spoke to the manager of the KFC, who explained that the store wasn't making any money. So they re-distributed the employees to other stores, and sold the franchise location back to the company. The employee also said that the company (Yum!) planned to re-open the restaurant under one of their other brands, like "Long John Silver's, Taco Bell, or A&W." It's worth noting that Yum! no longer owns LJS or A&W, that's just what the guy said.

So there you have it -- they weren't making money and it will soon reopen as something else. If you still feel the need to decimate your colon with a Double Down, you can always drive that extra 1.6 miles up the street to the Dort and Lapeer KFC.