Portrait of a restaurateur: Harland Sanders

Harland Sanders is so closely associated with Kentucky Fried Chicken as “Colonel Sanders” that his early career as a restaurant owner has been largely eclipsed. However, it occupied much of his time and energy before — and to a lesser extent after — he began selling and promoting his fried chicken recipe. [Above: Sanders at a restaurant convention, 1939]

He had a rough early life. His father, an Indiana farmer, died when he was 8. His mother took a factory job to support the family, while as the eldest child Harland was left with caring for his sisters, which included cooking their meals. He did not finish grade school. At age 12 his mother married a man that he disliked and he set off on his own, traveling around and working at a number of dead-end jobs.

According to a 1960 story in the trade publication American Restaurant, before he opened his restaurant in 1930 in Corbin, KY, Sanders “had worked as: farm hand, house painter, soldier [in Cuba], blacksmith helper for a railroad, locomotive fireman, insurance company employee, secretary for the Chamber of Commerce, justice of the peace, streetcar conductor, ferry boat operator, tire salesman, and service station operator.” The magazine left out lawyer (self-educated) and midwife.

By the early 1920s he was a married man with children and employed by an insurance company in his home state of Indiana. Then the family moved to Kentucky and he became interested in new enterprises, especially if they were car-related. After a number of endeavors that failed, he became a salesman for Michelin Tires, then ran service stations in Nicholasville and Lexington KY.

His biographer, John Ed Pearce, attributed his many failures to his temperament, which was characterized by “bullheadedness, a lack of self-control, impatience, and a self-righteous lack of diplomacy.”

1930 was the same year that he and two of his business associates got into a pistol fight with a rival of Harland’s in which one of his associates was killed. Later, when he had assumed the ‘Colonel’ role, traveling around and promoting fried chicken, he got into a fight with a cook after he complained about being served with an egg cooked improperly. The cook came at him with a butcher knife. As chronicled by Pearce in “The Colonel,” “the customers were treated to the unusual sight of a white-haired man in a colonel suit holding back a knife-wielding man with a stool.”

He was feisty, restless, and impatient and seemed to be happier starting businesses than running them on a day-to-day basis. Usually he would turn the operations over to a trusted employee, as was the case with a motel and restaurant he had opened in Asheville NC [shown above]. In 1939.he sent his top waitress, Claudia – his future wife following his divorce – to run it.

Despite his restlessness and emotional volatility, he was outgoing, had vast energy, and was noticed and admired as a restaurateur. In 1935 he was invited to join the board of directors of the National Restaurant Association, a position that he held for three terms. In 1936 he was elected president of the Kentucky Operators’ Association, and in 1940 his picture appeared on the cover of the May issue of Restaurant Management. In 1942 Sanders Court in Corbin KY, which included his restaurant, achieved wide recognition after being recommended both in Duncan Hines’ Adventures in Good Eating and in Best Places to Eat by Carl A. Barrett.

A 1932 Mothers’ Day menu gives an idea of meals offered by Harland Sanders’ restaurant, possibly on the somewhat fancier end for this special day. It included Fried Chicken with Mushrooms, Potatoes Au Gratin, Buttered New Peas, Asparagus Tips on Toast, Fruit Salad, and various beverages. Sanders was a confirmed non-drinker and did not serve alcoholic drinks in his restaurants.

The governor of Kentucky conferred the title of colonel on him in 1935, but he paid little attention to it for years. But by 1953 he used the honorary title when he leased a local restaurant called The Sea King which served sea food, and advertised that he would also serve “Delicious Kentucky BAR-B-CUE” and “that Colonel Sanders KY. FRIED CHICKEN that I’ve served at the Sanders Café at Corbin for the past 25 years.”

1953 was the first year he began seriously franchising his recipe. Traveling around the country selling his fried chicken recipe was much better suited to his personality than was running a restaurant.

In 1956 he sold his motor court and focused on selling his recipe and method of chicken preparation. The value of his restaurant business had plummeted with the building of a new interstate highway some distance from his restaurant. He had no offers, and was forced to sell the 26-unit motel and dining room on auction in March. In the auction advertisement he described its modern facilities and virtues, among them “Flawless reputation,” referring to his policy of not accepting local motel customers. The advertisement also noted that the business was the “home of Col. Sanders’ Ky. Fried Chicken, franchised all over the U.S.A.” To increase attendance at the auction he promised that someone who attended would win a “FREE Millionaire Havana Vacation For 2.”

In 1964, when there were over 900 franchise holders, he sold his franchising business, with the understanding that he would continue with his publicity work. The new owners sold it in 1971 to the Heublein corporation. He criticized the company repeatedly, calling the executives a “bunch of booze hounds.”

Following his retirement from traveling to Kentucky Fried Chicken sites around the U.S., and giving up his sites in Canada that he had retained when he sold his interests, he might have taken it easy. But not completely. He and his Claudia opened a dinner house on the property where their home was located near Shelbyville. A second one opened in the Harrison Hotel in Cynthiana as a franchise. The restaurants served dinners family style, with each main dish, whether fried chicken, ham, steak, or lobster, accompanied by seven vegetables prepared with Harland’s and Claudia’s home recipes. The Sanders acted as consultants. The plan to open additional Claudia Sanders’ Dinner Houses in Bowling Green KY as well as Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus OH did not materialize.

Harland wanted to make it to 100 years old, but he only made it to 90.

© Jan Whitaker, 2026