Inside just a five-minute walk along Fishergate in Preston, you hit four big name chicken shops.
Starting at Miller Arcade, you have MB Chicken. You’d be forgiven if you’ve never heard of them but they are expanding rapidly from their core base of 300 spots in Canada. 150 more are planned in the near future.
Down the road is Wingstop – not yet open but the signs are up. Wingstop doesn’t just do wings. It does the lot – wings, tenders, boneless, burgers. They’ve got a heat-scale, not vastly dissimilar to Nando’s but more varied, that makes them a little bit different.
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Popeyes Chicken is visible from the front door of Wingstop. They’ve been around a long time – the first time they entered my consciousness was watching the Adam Sandler film Little Nicky about 25 years ago.
And, obviously, the UK’s first KFC.
Food trends come and go. Roll back a decade and it was burgers. Solita opened and closed at Winckley Square as part of a mini-chain. Five Guys at Deepdale appears to have ridden out the storm. Preston never got a Byron Burger or a Handmade Burger Co, for which we should be grateful.
What we did have was independent options. The first was opened by Mark O’Rourke with We Don’t Give A Fork but today the standout options are probably Tipsy Chef on Lancaster Road – which started life inside Preston Markets – and All Hopes No Promises on St Wilfrid Street.
We don’t really have the same level independent competition for the North American chicken names in Preston (honourable mention to the tenders at Different Gravy in the Mad Giant food hall though because they’re fantastic).
Michael Evans served burgers in Preston for the first time in 2021 under the Smashed name. There was a legal battle with another US giant in Smashburger about that and now they use the All Hopes No Promises name instead.
Less known is that they planned to open a dedicated chicken eatery on Guildhall Street called Fried Society a few years ago – but ultimately abandoned it.
Michael told Blog Preston: “While working on the site, I had a moment where I just stopped and asked myself, “Why am I doing this?”
“The costs of running a fried-food business — utilities, oil, fryers — have become extreme.
“Preston is already a tough town to trade in, whether you’re an independent or a chain. You see businesses come and go all the time. I didn’t want to put myself under even more pressure by opening another venue in what feels like a constant fight.
“Now, with so many chicken shops popping up in Preston, I honestly don’t know how these big chains expect to survive. People don’t see what Preston is really like at night — it can be a ghost town. Daytime trade is fine, but evenings are completely different. Yes, new places often get that initial hype and honeymoon period, but keeping three major chicken chains going practically on top of each other seems unrealistic.
“And unlike independents like ourselves, who spend money back into the local economy and use local butchers, the big chains don’t give much back.
“The reality is: fried-food costs are ridiculously high right now. For chains to sell chicken at such low prices, they must be cutting corners somewhere — and that usually means quality.”
It’s not just that. A splurge of openings following a trend rarely leads to long-term success.
Simon Carlo, a food reviewer and restaurant consultant from the Midlands, told Blog Preston: “They all have very lucrative franchise options and on the face of it promise high returns quickly. The issue is two fold; firstly the vitality wears off fast and in terms of longevity the fried chicken craze has already passed the apex.”
It’s not true to say there are zero independent places to get chicken in Preston. Many will do it as part of a wider offering. Wings and Beer literally has wings in the name – but is arguably more bar than eatery and also does burgers, hotdogs and burritos.
And there are lots of places you might think of as more traditional fried chicken – the end of night low budget option – that are still going.
All of this – a chicken explosion – is true of most cities as the US names expand. But it’s particularly interesting for Preston even in a historical sense. It is common knowledge that the UK’s first KFC opened in Preston in 1965 and they dominated the market for decades thereafter.
Tradition met innovation in the summer when KFC teamed with SpudBros for an event on the Flag Market to celebrate 60 years in the UK – and in Preston.
But even KFC is aware that the competition is coming. To meet this, they intend to invest heavily in the UK over the next decade and open 500 new restaurants.
Matt Bell, Region Coach for KFC UK & Ireland, told Blog Preston: “When people talk about the UK’s fried chicken boom, they sometimes forget it all started with KFC – right here in Preston. Our Fishergate restaurant is the birthplace of British fried chicken, and sixty years on we’re still proud to call this city home.
“The new names arriving are a sign of how the market’s grown, and as the original, we’ll keep leading the way – serving our unbeatable chicken, freshly hand-breaded every day, just like we always have.”
Perhaps less well-known is that one of the names behind KFC opening in Preston, Harry Latham, went on to set up a direct competitor in Bristol known as Miss Millie’s. There are now 13 of them, mostly in Bristol itself, meaning that in that city at least there was an example of a challenge to KFC dominance.
It’s 2025, so a lot of this rapid expansion is powered by social media – and Tiktok in particular. In the same way that there are people who have flown around the world to get a potato from Preston’s SpudBros, there are people in the UK who have flown to America to try Raising Cane’s chicken tenders.
Raising Cane’s will be the next big name to come to the UK. That I’ve even heard of them is a testament to the power of the algorithm. People reviewing chicken shops on Tiktok will use Raising Cane’s as the absolute benchmark. Something can be fantastic, but will come with the caveat “but it’s not as good as Raising Cane’s”.
Whether those reviewers have actually tried it, whether they’re paid to mention the brand in every video they do, whether it’s actually any good is all secondary. They’re in the feed, so it will be in demand.
Carlo said that social media is absolutely a way to promote food – but it feeds into the idea of trends of longevity.
He added: “TikTok presents a world that’s driven by image over flavour, where people will rush to the latest viral craze before moving on to the next one.”
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