A backhoe made quick work of the Kentucky Fried Chicken store in Antigo this morning. |
'New' fried chicken place tumbles down Oct. 30, 2008 The Duffek Sand and Gravel machinery was on the site of the idled Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant today flattening it like a pancake.
The restaurant, part of a chain that operated in Antigo, Rhinelander Minocqua, closed in March, 2007 and left the Antigo property sitting high, dry and closed. It was purchased by a Merrill restaurateur who operates KFC outlets in a number of central Wisconsin cities, and a new store was scheduled for Antigo in 2008. That date has been bumped to 2009, but the deck has been cleared for the work.
In fact, the same organization brought an automobile car wash business just south of the restaurant, and removed that earlier this year.
The building that was razed today dates back just 25 years when a ribbon was clipped welcoming the modern and new facility to Antigo.
But it wasn’t the first place that cooked Colonel Sander’s chicken here.
The first filled a void created in a building in the middle of the 500 block of Superior Street.
For decades it had been the Sinclair filling station and Walt’s Tire Shop, had a number of different owners, operated as a Mexican restaurant and then, as a Kentucky Fried Chicken, manned and owned by the Beattie family.
The franchise was moved to the new facility near the intersection of Highway 45 and North Avenue and, a quarter of a century ago, a tavern was moved into the old tire shop, the colonel’s Antigo hideout.
Darleen Coon launched that tavern and put a name on it that has lasted far better than the KFC building did.
It was then, and is today, called the Kackle Shack.
It certainly is a tribute to the Beattie family and Colonel Sanders.
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