Sydney’s Inner-West suburb of Newtown has a long history as a sanctuary for vegans, artists and property investors. The tagline “Keep Newtown Weird” is plastered across buildings alongside large-scale public murals, and residents and visitors alike flock to support small bars and restaurants.

It’s also a notoriously tough suburb for restaurants to survive in at the best of times, let alone when locals don their NIMBY caps.

A spectacular boycott of McDonald’s in 1998 resulted in the fast-food giant being driven out of town after 11 years in business, citing, “The restaurant which opened in April 1989 was closed due to the changing demographics of the Newtown area, particularly in King Street.” 

Now another American fast-food outlet is facing the wrath of the suburb – KFC. The Colonel has plans to open a new outlet on King Street, across the road from the Newtown Hotel. Local restaurant owners fear the area is becoming flooded with chicken shops, with five others already operating within a 100-metre radius of the site.

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The proposal would allow the KFC to move into the former Kammadhenu site – a two-level restaurant on King Street’s north end. The restaurant would operate from 10am to 11pm on Sundays to Thursdays and 10am to 2am on Fridays and Saturdays. 

Currently, El Jannah Chicken, Broaster Chicken, Gami Chicken, Ogalo, and Clem’s run the block – with Big Daddy Burgers and Mary’s down the road also famous for their fried chicken. 

However, if the fear of local restaurants becoming oversaturated with chicken is, in fact, the reasoning, were they watching during the great Fro-Yo-ification of King Street in the 2010s? Or the hopscotching of Thai restaurants before that?  

The difference between the existing chicken flock and KFC is that – with the exception of Ogalo – the other restaurants are independent, Australian-owned businesses. Kentucky Fried Chicken doesn’t quite hit the mark for a microcosm stead-fast on supporting small. 

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Weirdly enough, while the 2024 plans to open a KFC in Newtown have ruffled feathers, Newtown was one of the first suburbs in Australia where the international franchise opened. KFC landed in Australia in 1968. By the 1970s King Street had a resident KFC which functioned for years before becoming lost to the tides of time. 

A similar situation occurred in the affluent suburb of Mosman recently, when Mexican fast-food chain Guzman Y Gomez proposed a 24-hour restaurant in the otherwise sleepy village. Outraged NIMBYs forced the chain to backflip on its proposal and amend opening hours to 6am – 10pm daily instead. The proposal is still up in the air but we’re not holding our breath.

Of course, it’s easy to become outraged at The Big Guys coming in and muscling out The Little Guys and rightly so. This David and Goliath story goes back to, well, Biblical times. When it comes to making a stand, customers vote with their dollars. So boycott away! We’ll just turn a blind eye come midnight on Saturday, ok?

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