Alexey Kovalev singer. Andrey Kovalev: biography, career and family

I think many people know this restaurant chain fast food, How KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken — direct competitor McDonalds).

Therefore, today I would like to invite you to familiarize yourself with a success story Garland David Sanders founder of this network. By the way, not so long ago this network settled and opened in Kyiv.

But first of all, I draw attention to the founder of this fast food restaurant chain. After all, real success came to Garland after 70 years.

Becoming a millionaire thanks to the created brand KFC, thereby proving that you can become a millionaire at any age.

Conductor, private, fireman, loader, car mechanic

Garland David Sanders(English) Harland David Sanders), better known by the nickname Colonel Sanders(eng. Colonel Sanders) ( September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) - founder of a chain of fast food restaurants Kentucky Fried Chicken (« Kentucky Fried Chicken", KFC).

He was the first to turn chicken frying into a multimillion-dollar business in 1952. His signature recipe is pieces of batter-fried chicken seasoned with a mixture of aromatic herbs and spices. His stylized portrait is traditionally depicted on all restaurants of his chain and on branded packaging.

In fact, Sanders was never an army officer. The rank of "Colonel" is an honorary title awarded annually by the Governor of a state for distinguished service in public life state.

It is noteworthy that Sanders completed only six grades (once again I am convinced that having an education is not a sign of success), and he fried his first chickens at the age of six.

He opened his own restaurant only at the age of 47, and his fried chicken became the culinary symbol of the state of Kentucky.

It must be said that Garland finally had normal money to live on. Stable income prompted young man To important event in his life - he proposed to a girl named Claudia, with whom he lived his entire subsequent life.

After the wedding, life for the Sanders family could not be called simple - Garland was fired from his position as a fireman almost instantly. Over the following years, he tried a lot of other professions, but never found one that he could hold out on. for a long time.

In such a situation, any marriage would be on the brink, but not the Sanders'. The wife endured all her husband’s problems steadfastly and believed in him until the very end. And for good reason.

And he knows how to cook chickens!

TO 40 years old Garland managed to change several dozen professions. He sold tires, was a fireman, a soldier, a conductor, helped farmers, worked as a peddler and much, much more.

It would seem that this is the typical fate of a person who has completed only 6 classes. One time Sanders tried to get an education by enrolling in law courses. But for no one known reasons never finished them.

However, when Garland was already over 40, he had little capital accumulated over the years. This money had to be managed somehow.

Sanders has been out of sorts for a long time. Flew by most of life, and he was still small person who has achieved nothing, does not have enough money to live in pleasure. He was disappointed in life.

And, of course, he wanted to change it. To begin with, stop exchanging jobs that are not interesting to him.

Starting a business

In 1930, he Garland opened his own auto repair shop in Kentucky. It is worth noting important point– Garland thought quite seriously about the location of his workshop, choosing for the workshop the best place— the side of the 25th federal highway.

People traveled to Florida from the northern states along this road. The flow of clients was very high.

And then Sanders came up with a great idea - to open a small canteen for clients who were waiting for all the repair work on their car to be completed (Sanders’ workshop performed the most simple work, such as changing engine oil, tires, etc.). There was no special place for a dining room.

Therefore, Garland allocated one room of the workshop for him (his family lived in several others).

This room contained a dining table and 6 chairs. Sanders cooked his food right in his home kitchen. Soon his auto repair shop became famous throughout Kentucky. Your fried chicken.

It was called: "Garland Sanders' Kentucky Fried Chicken."

All customers noted the quality of his seasoning, which he prepared from 11 different spices. Life began to get better.

In order to increase his income, Garland introduces some innovations - purchasing a pressure cooker. This was the time when this type of pan was just appearing. One of the first people to appreciate the benefits of pressure cookers was Garland Sanders.

If previously chicken took about 30 minutes to cook, now this time has been reduced to 15. This means that customers did not have to wait so long for their food, which contributed to an increase in the number of orders.

A significant event in Sanders' life occurred in 1935, when Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon awarded Garland the title of " Kentucky Colonel"for services to the state. Indeed, they were great - after all, throughout the entire area they were talking about “ National dish » state from Garland Sanders.

The title of colonel, albeit an honorary one, fueled Garlan's deeply hidden vanity. Now he began to build a motel and restaurant with 142 seats near his auto repair shop. The establishment looked very much like a neat German farmstead.

Refocusing your business away from the car workshop theme. Opening a motel Sanders Court & Cafe, which was also a fast food restaurant in its own right.

True, you can’t compare fast food restaurants McDonald's And Sanders Court & Cafe because they were not comparable. Still, Garland spent about 10-15 minutes preparing the order. So it wasn't full-fledged fast food.

Already being a colonel, Garland Sanders began to dress in the now classic clothes – white suit and a black butterfly. This is how it is depicted on company logos KFC.

This image quickly entered the hearts of ordinary Americans, who fell in love with Sanders’s small establishment. During these years, Garland had more orders and money than he had in his entire life. He felt success.

It was Golden time Sanders, and troubles only invigorated him. When the establishment burned down in 1939, Garland rebuilt it within a couple of months. And in the same year, the famous food critic Duncan Hines I first mentioned it in my restaurant guide " Looking for good food«.

There, the Colonel's chickens were listed as a special attraction in Kentucky. The restaurant resumed its work a few months after the incident. In addition, state authorities tried to help Garland, since his chicken was a Kentucky landmark.

At least for other Americans.

Fortune of nickels

Of course, minor problems arose from time to time.

The years flew by in pleasant troubles, and Sanders was already counting on a calm old age, when his life Once again presented an unexpected surprise.

At the very beginning of the 1950s, a new Federal Highway 75 was completed from the northern states to Florida, which passed away from Corbin.

The flow of clients that began 20 years ago dried up overnight. Sanders floundered for another year, but in 1952 he no longer had enough money to support the restaurant and had to be auctioned off to pay off creditors.

At 62, Sanders was once again without a job, a home, or money. The only thing he could count on was a state old-age pension - $105 a month.

To Garland's credit, he took this disaster as an opportunity to feel 22 years younger, returning to his old life as a tumbleweed.

He began to visit cafes and restaurants: first the nearby ones, then he got further and further from home. He carried with him a bag of his magic seasoning and his favorite pressure cooker.

Arriving at the restaurant, Sanders asked permission to cook in 15 minutes in front of the owner “ kentucky chicken“, and then offered to include this chicken on the menu, promising an uninterrupted supply of his spice mixture.

In exchange, he asked for 5 cents for every sale." kentucky chicken". Sanders did not sign any agreements; the deal was sealed with a handshake.

Driving from city to city by car is not an easy task, especially when not every restaurant agreed to cooperate.

Sanders found his first partner only in Salt Lake City.

He became the owner of the restaurant Pete Harman.

And Garland continued to visit more and more restaurants with stupid persistence. During this time, his wife stayed home to prepare the seasoning and distribute it to partner restaurants.

« Claudia took orders, packed the seasoning in small bags and sent them to customers on the night train“,” says Sanders.

By the end of the 1950s " Kentucky fried chicken» has already been sold by more than 200 eateries in the USA and Canada.

« At first, business was sluggish, but over time things began to pick up.

I began to understand how Mr. Woolworth managed to organize such a large chain of penny stores.“, Sanders said, laughing. These nickels accumulate and grow into a fortune!»

Millionaire at work

It is worth noting that the business created by Sanders also had a big drawback - it relied on Garland himself, who was already over 70.

The colonel personally sold franchises, was involved in marketing the chain, and even tried to check every bag of spices. The heirs did not want to deal with chicken professionally.

In general, when Sanders was offered to sell the business in 1964 Kentucky Fried Chicken (« "), he agreed.

The buyers were a pool of investors led by John Brown Jr., future governor of Kentucky. They paid Garland $2 million for the entire company in February 1964. At that time, the company had more than 600 franchises in the USA and Canada. Sanders also remains the company's public spokesman, earning a salary of $250,000 a year.

So at the age of 70, Garland David Sanders became a millionaire

Although the colonel was now something of a Santa Claus in a white suit, he did his job honestly.

He flew to all the countries where KFC establishments were now opening, and his luxurious limousine often visited children's parties. If he was asked why a millionaire should work in old age, he usually grinned:

There is no reason to be a rich man in a cemetery. You can't do business lying there. Jack Daniel's famous motto

At 84, he published his autobiography entitled Life as I have known it has been finger licking good» (« Life, I've learned, licks its hands thoroughly«).

Having fulfilled this sacred duty of any successful American to society, he calmly, as he had dreamed all his life, lived for another six years, indulging in harmless pleasures, for example, playing masterful golf.

The only thing that poisoned his life was the current " kentucky fried chicken«. « Everyone in the company is too carried away with commerce and cooks who knows what from chickens“,” he once said in an interview.

However, for his soul he still had his own restaurant Claudia Sanders' Dinner House(he sold the right to his name in the name along with the business), where he always personally monitored the technology of chicken preparation.

Garlan Sanders died of leukemia on December 16, 1980, when he was 90 years old. The colonel was buried in his famous white suit with a black bow tie.

Now restaurants KFC open in many cities around the world.

What know-how did Sanders offer his franchisees?

1. A special seasoning of 11 herbs and spices for marinating chicken.

2. Technology for cooking chicken in a pressure cooker - the cooking time has been reduced from 30 to 15 minutes.

Five steps to a million from Garland David Sanders

1. Farmer, streetcar conductor, U.S. Army private, blacksmith's assistant, locomotive fireman, law student, insurance agent, furniture mover, ferry captain, tire salesman, and auto mechanic.

2. At 40, life is just beginning: Sanders decided to work for himself and opened his own auto repair shop... which sold fried chicken best of all.

3. At the age of 47, he followed the lead of his clients and opened his own restaurant.

4. At the age of 62, Colonel Sanders was completely ruined when a new state highway passed away from his establishment.

5. Once again, the pensioner Sanders began selling a franchise for the technology for preparing his fried chicken. And he became a millionaire at the age of 70.

Secret materials

The hype around the secret to Garlan Sanders' famous 11-herb and spice chicken seasoning continues.

Once the host of the TV show “Fast Food” Gloria Pitzer on TV with Sanders told him that she had made a very similar seasoning using three cups of flour, a tablespoon of paprika, two packets of powdered broth and two packets of seasoning Seven Seas.

The colonel laughed:

« Yes, you are a real cook!«

She herself adds fuel to the fire KFC. The company officially claims that the entire recipe is known only to a few people in management, and the list itself never leaves a specially guarded safe.

Colonel's first pressure cooker

Still in the museum at the KFC Restaurant Supply Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

Resurrected

A few years after the death of Garlan Sanders, KFC ran commercials in which the Colonel closely resembles the original. Members of his family even said that when they saw them, they experienced superstitious horror.

Old Mason

Garlan Sanders was a member Masonic lodge since 1917. His grave is marked by a bust sculpted by his daughter Margaret. It has images of a Masonic square and compasses.

P.S. That's all. Here's the story. Nikolay Yakimenko was with you with his blog.

Until next releases.

Harland David Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 - December 16, 1980) - founder of the fast food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken(Kentucky Fried Chicken, KFC).

Colonel Sanders was the first to turn chicken frying into a multimillion-dollar business in 1952. His signature recipe is pieces of fried chicken in batter, seasoned with a mixture of aromatic herbs and spices. His portrait is traditionally depicted on all restaurants of his network and on branded packaging. Rank of "Colonel" is an honorary title awarded annually by the governor of a state for outstanding service in the public life of the state.

So, ready to hear his difficult life story? Go:

Harland Sanders was born September 9, 1890 in small town Henryville in the US state of Indiana. Harland's dad earned his living by doing auxiliary work for local farmers. He earned little, but his mother could afford to look after the children. But when Sanders turned five years old father died suddenly. To feed the children, the mother had to go to work, and little Harland remained at home all day in charge of younger brother and sister.

Such a life opened up for him real talent to cooking. In just a few months, Sanders learned to cook all the family's popular dishes. There was no question of studying in such a situation. Harland had no time to attend school regularly, and no money for college. At 10 he got a job as a worker on a nearby farm with a monthly salary of $2. Two years later, his mother remarried, and Harland's stepfather sent him to work on a farm away from home, because... I didn’t particularly want to be involved in raising other people’s children.

IN 14 years Sanders dropped out of school completely. In total, he studied there for six classes.

Having given up at the age of 15 Agriculture, He got a job as a tram conductor.

At 16 years old, he enlisted in the American army and went to serve as a private in Cuba. There our hero was engaged in shoveling horse manure in the army, and later got a job blacksmith's assistant. Then, as a washer of rail rolling stock at the local railway, and later as a fireman in the fire department. Everything went so well there that Harland even plucked up the courage to propose to his beloved Josephine (first wife), which accepted this proposal.

Josephine didn't want children, but 19-year-old Sanders was assertive: official version, 9 months after wedding night the couple had their first child, a girl, Margaret. Two years later, Harland Jr. was born, and seven years later Mildred was born.

After the birth of his first child, Sanders was fired. However, his wife loved Harland enough to heroically endure his constant rushing from one job to another.

At one time, Sanders even decided to engage in mental work - he enrolled in correspondence law courses and got a job practicing in court. Soon the lawyer's career ended due to the fact that during the trial he got into a fight with his client. The Bar Association stripped him of his license.

After that and until the age of 40, Harland tried other occupations as an insurance agent, miner, furniture mover, farmer, ferry captain, tire salesman and auto mechanic.

Mine He celebrated his 40th birthday in deep depression: his youth passed, and somehow it turned out naturally that he had neither his own home nor even permanent job. At that moment, he heard on the radio a speech by the then famous comedian Will Rogers, who said in his humoresque that “life begins only at the age of forty.” Harland later said that “That radio program changed my life”. From now on, he decided to work only for himself, since he had small savings.

In 1930, in the city of Corbin, Kentucky, Sanders opened his own auto repair shop. He chose the place not by chance: his enterprise was located right on the side of Federal Highway 25, connecting the Northern states with Florida. This provided him with a constant flow of clients. Harland and his family lived right there, in several living rooms at the auto repair shop.

Things slowly got going, and soon Sanders decided to offer the road-weary visitors some food, especially he loved to cook. He prepared the food himself in his home kitchen, and the room for clients could only accommodate one dining table and six chairs. The basis of the modest menu was fried chicken, which Harland was especially good at. Over the next nine years he invented and improved his " secret recipe» frying chicken under pressure, which cooks the chicken faster than in a frying pan.

In 1935 Kentucky Governor Ruby Laffoon accepted him as a member of the honorary "Order of Kentucky Colonels" with the wording "for his contribution to the development of roadside public catering."

With the money he saved, Sanders began building a motel and restaurant with 142 seats near his auto repair shop. The establishment looked very much like a neat German farmstead.

The opening took place in 1937 under the sign of Sanders Court & Cafe (Sanders Motel and Cafe). Sanders appeared in front of visitors in a luxurious white suit with a black bow tie.

There was no end to visitors now. When in 1939 the establishment burned down, Harland rebuilt it in a couple of months.

But soon life began to crack again- the construction of a new highway was completed, onto which the entire stream that had previously passed by Harland’s auto repair shop was driven.

It would seem like a failure again, his age is no longer young - 62 years old, Harland has almost given up.

And then came to his aid... fried chicken! Yes, that’s right, he tensed up, packed his suitcase and went to drive around to nearby restaurants with a single phrase: “I can cook fried chicken better than you.”

He was refused again and again, an excellent cook in his advanced years was suspiciously examined from head to toe and was often not even allowed on the threshold. Let's mentally put ourselves in the shoes of a restaurant owner. You successful business, and then one fine sunny day a rusty wreck drives up to your establishment, from which some strange old man comes out and invites you to first buy a chicken recipe from him, and then pay him money every month. Naturally, you ask him:

– Perhaps you are a famous chef?
“No, I’m not a cook,” the strange grandfather will answer.
- Oh, I see, you - owner of a chain of successful restaurants, and are you expanding it?
– I don’t have restaurants. There was one, but I went broke,” the pensioner honestly admits.
“Well, now I understand,” you guess. - You - renowned cookbook publisher.
– No, I’m a simple person and I only have one chicken recipe.

It took a long time before he was able to find his first customer. Some sources claim that he visited 1006 restaurants before concluding the first contract. Under the terms of the agreement, Sanders received only 5 cents for each of his chickens at each restaurant. Not bad, considering that order volumes were constantly growing. Needless to say, already in the early 60s, several hundred US restaurants were clients of Harland Sanders.

And then Harland Sanders’ wish came true - he realized himself 100%. He found his favorite job, completely surrendering to your talent. He made others believe in themselves!

When he was 70 years old, Kentucky Fried Chicken reached the peak of its fame, and the old colonel decides to sell the company to private investors for $2 million and the position of company representative (brand face), for which he was paid about 250 thousand dollars a year.

In 1980, at the age of 90, Harland Sanders died.

In recent years, he has devoted quite a lot to himself - traveling, playing golf, and running his own restaurant, Claudia Sanders’ Dinner House, with his wife.

Five steps to a million

1. Farmer, streetcar conductor, American Army private, blacksmith's assistant, locomotive fireman, law student, insurance agent, furniture mover, ferry captain, tire salesman, and auto mechanic.

2. At 40, life is just beginning: Sanders decided to work for himself and opened his own auto repair shop, which sold fried chicken the best.

3. At the age of 47, he followed the lead of his clients and opened his own restaurant.

4. At the age of 62, Colonel Sanders went completely broke when a new state highway passed away from his establishment.

5. Once again, pensioner Sanders began selling a franchise for the technology for preparing his fried chicken. And he became a millionaire at the age of 70.

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Around 1950, Sanders began to create his own distinct image, growing his signature mustache and goatee and wearing an aristocratic white suit with a ribbon tie. He wore nothing else in public for the last 20 years of his life, alternating between a warm wool suit in winter and a light cotton suit in summer.

When Sanders turned 65, his restaurant began to suffer losses due to the opening of a new interstate I-75, which has reduced the number of visitors. He withdrew money from his Social Security fund and began outbidding potential franchisee. This approach was successful and less than 10 years later (in 1964), Sanders sold KFC Corporation for $2 million to a company of Kentucky businessmen headed by John Brown. The deal did not include Canadian restaurants. In 1965, Sanders moved to Mosisoge, Ontario to control his Canadian franchises and continued to collect new ones. In 1973, he sued the Hublein Corporation (KFC's parent company) for misusing his image to promote products he did not design. In 1979, Hublein unsuccessfully sued Sanders for libel when he publicly called their gravy " silt tastes like wallpaper paste."

Sanders died in Louisville, Kentucky, of pneumonia on December 16, 1980, at the age of 90. He was acutely ill leukemia, discovered earlier in June of the same year. Sanders was buried in his famous white suit with a thin black tie.

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Notes

Literature

• Currell, Billy. 2006. Kentucky Fried Tender. ASIN.
• Pearce, John The Colonel(1982) ISBN 0-385-18122-1
• Kleber, John J. et al. The Kentucky Encyclopedia. - Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1992. - ISBN ISBN 0-8131-1772-0.

Links

Excerpt characterizing Colonel Sanders

Afterwards, I couldn’t come to my senses for a very long time, I became withdrawn, and spent a lot of time alone, which saddened all my family to the core. But, little by little, life took its toll. And, after some time, I slowly began to emerge from that deeply isolated state into which I had plunged myself, and from which it turned out to be very, very difficult... My patient and loving parents tried to help me as best they could. But for all their efforts, they did not know that I was truly no longer alone - that, after all my experiences, an even more unusual and fantastic world suddenly opened up to me than the one in which I had already lived for some time. . A world that surpassed any imaginable fantasy in its beauty, and which (again!) was given to me with its extraordinary essence by my grandfather. This was even more amazing than everything that happened to me before. But for some reason this time I didn’t want to share it with anyone...
Days passed by. In my Everyday life I was an absolutely normal six-year-old child who had my own joys and sorrows, desires and sorrows and such unfulfillable rainbow childhood dreams... I chased pigeons, loved going to the river with my parents, played children's badminton with friends, helped, to the best of my ability , mother and grandmother in the garden, read my favorite books, learned to play the piano. In other words, I lived the most normal life ordinary life all small children. The only trouble was that by that time I already had two Lives... It was as if I lived in two completely different worlds: the first one was ours ordinary world, in which we all live every day, and the second was my own “hidden” world, in which only my soul lived. It became more and more difficult for me to understand why what was happening to me was not happening to any of my friends?
I began to notice more often that the more I shared my “incredible” stories with someone from my environment, the more often they felt a strange alienation and childish wariness. It hurt and it made me very sad. Children are curious, but they don't like the unknown. They always try as quickly as possible with their childish minds to get to the bottom of what is happening, acting on the principle: “what is it and what do they eat it with?”... And if they cannot understand it, it becomes “alien” for their everyday environment and is very quickly fades into oblivion. This is how I started to become a little “alien”...
I gradually began to understand that my mother was right in advising me not to tell my friends about everything. But I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t want to know this, because it was so interesting! So, step by step, I came to the sad understanding that I must not be exactly like everyone else. When I once asked my mother about this “head-on”, she told me that I shouldn’t be sad, but on the contrary, I should be proud, because this is a special talent. To be honest, I couldn’t understand what kind of talent it was that all my friends were shying away from?.. But it was reality and I had to live with it. Therefore, I tried to somehow adapt to it and tried to talk as little as possible about my strange “opportunities and talents” among my acquaintances and friends...

The History of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

Harland David Sanders, better known by his pseudonym Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 - December 16, 1980) - founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast food restaurant chain (KFC). ), He was the first to turn chicken frying into a multi-million dollar business in 1952. His signature recipe is pieces of batter-fried chicken seasoned with a mixture of aromatic herbs and spices. His stylized portrait is traditionally depicted on all restaurants of his chain and on branded packaging. In fact, Sanders was never an army officer. The rank of "Colonel" is an honorary title awarded annually by the Governor of a state for distinguished service in the public life of the state.

He completed only six grades, and fried his first chickens at the age of six. He opened his own restaurant only at the age of 47, and his fried chicken became the culinary symbol of the state of Kentucky.

The year 1945 was eventful: Nazi Germany capitulated, the Americans dropped atomic bomb to Japan, and the discoverer of penicillin, Alexander Fleming, was awarded the Nobel Prize.

But everything was calm in the life of 55-year-old Garlan Sanders, who ran a small restaurant under the same roof as a motel in the American state of Kentucky. Sanders had lived a troubled life and now enjoyed peace and stability. He loved to cook - and his food was considered the best in the state. He wanted to have own house and family - he lived in his own motel, and the whole family loved the fried chicken he cooked. His vanity was fully satisfied with the honorary title of “Kentucky Colonel” (analogous to our title of honorary citizen). And now Sanders reasonably believed that it would be too presumptuous of him to want more. When well-fed and satisfied visitors asked Garlan if he was thinking of opening a second restaurant somewhere, Sanders smiled and said that he was too old for such adventures.

Conductor, private, fireman, loader, car mechanic

Harlan Sanders was born on September 9, 1890 in the small town of Henryville in the US state of Indiana. Garlan's dad earned his living by doing auxiliary work for local farmers. He earned little, but his mother could afford to look after the children. But when Sanders was six years old, his father died suddenly. To feed the children, the mother had to go to work, and little Garlan remained at home all day in charge with his younger brother and sister. This life revealed his real talent for cooking. In just a few months, Sanders learned to cook all the family's popular dishes. There was no question of studying in such a situation. Garlan had no time to attend school regularly, and no money for college. At the age of 10, he got a job as a worker on a nearby farm with a monthly salary of $2. Two years later, his mother remarried, and Garlan was sent out of sight to work on a farm in the nearby town of Greenwood. At the age of 14, Sanders dropped out of school completely. In total, he studied there for six classes - this was the only systematic education in his life.

From that moment on, Sanders led a semi-vagrant life, changing his activities and habitats as soon as he became tired of them. Having abandoned farming at the age of 15, he got a job as a tram conductor in New Albany, Indiana. At the age of 16, he enlisted in the American army and went to serve as a private in Cuba, which was then actually an American colony. Garlan fled from there six months later to become a blacksmith's assistant. But there, in his opinion, the pay was clearly not enough for a decent existence. Then he got a job as a locomotive fireman for a railway company. Everything went so well there that Garlan even plucked up the courage to propose to Claudia, who accepted the proposal. Soon they had their first child - and then Sanders was fired. However, Claudia loved Garlan enough to stoically endure his constant rushing from one job to another.

At one time, Sanders even decided to engage in mental work - he enrolled in correspondence law courses and got a job practicing in court. However, after a few months he became bored with this activity. After that, and until age 40, Garlan tried other jobs as an insurance agent, furniture mover, Ohio River ferry captain, tire salesman, and auto mechanic.

"Order of Kentucky Colonels"

So, unbeknownst to himself, Sanders approached the fifth decade. He celebrated his 40th birthday in deep depression: his youth was gone, and somehow it turned out that he didn’t have his own home, or even a permanent job. At that moment, he heard on the radio a speech by the then famous comedian Will Rogers, who said in his humoresque that “life begins only at the age of forty.” Garlan later said that “that radio broadcast changed my life.” From now on, he decided to work only for himself, since he had small savings.

In 1930, Sanders opened his own auto repair shop in Corbin, Kentucky. He chose the place not by chance: his enterprise was located right on the side of Federal Highway 25, connecting the Northern states with Florida. This provided him with a constant flow of clients. Garlan and his family lived right there, in several living rooms at the auto repair shop.

Things slowly got going, and soon Sanders decided to offer the road-weary visitors some food, especially since he loved to cook. He prepared the food himself in his home kitchen, and the room for clients could only accommodate one dining table and six chairs. The basis of the modest menu was fried chicken, which Garlan was especially successful at. Soon Sanders had his own regulars, and a year later Garlan was somewhat surprised to discover that his miserable eatery brought in the lion's share of the enterprise's income. Then he called his chicken "Garlan Sanders Kentucky Fried Chicken, seasoned with 11 herbs and spices" and hung a sign above the entrance to the workshop. That's how Sanders' home cooking got its name. There were also technical innovations. Customers at Sanders's diner were often in a hurry, and the 30 minutes it took to fry a chicken in a frying pan seemed prohibitively long to Garlan. He found a solution when he attended a promotional demonstration of new pressure cooking pots that had just appeared - pressure cookers. Having bought one for himself, Sanders learned how to cook incredibly juicy chicken in just 15 minutes. Spices and pressure cookers became the main secrets of cooking "Kentucky chicken."

For the first time in his life, Garlan was completely satisfied with his work. Of course: he was paid money for his culinary hobby, and no one in the whole world could fire him now. And the fame of his chickens grew and spread. By the mid-1930s, everyone driving along Highway 25 perceived them as the “national” dish of Kentucky. This was the first and, perhaps, the most major success Sanders in the field of introducing his product into the wilds public consciousness. The success is all the more remarkable because Sanders had only six classes behind him, unfinished correspondence courses in law and a bunch of working professions.

Be that as it may, in 1935, the Governor of Kentucky, Ruby Laffoon, accepted him as a member of the honorary “Order of Kentucky Colonels” with the wording “for his contribution to the development of roadside catering.”

The title of colonel, albeit an honorary one, fueled Garlan's deeply hidden vanity. Now he began to build a motel and restaurant with 142 seats near his auto repair shop. The establishment looked very much like a neat German farmstead.

The opening took place in 1937 under the sign of Sanders Court & Cafe (Sanders Motel and Cafe). Sanders appeared in front of visitors in a luxurious white suit with a black bow tie. The nostalgic image of a real colonel of the slaveholding South was completed with snow-white gray hair and a wedge beard.

This character was a success with the public, and from now on Sanders appeared in his restaurant only in this white suit. There was no end to clients now. The number of chickens sold can be judged by the fact that the famous Sanders seasoning was required in bags. “In those days, I mixed my seasoning like you would mix cement,” Sanders said. “On the clean concrete floor in the back room of my cafe, I mixed flour and spices with a shovel.”

This was Sanders' golden time, and trouble only invigorated him. When the establishment burned down in 1939, Garlan rebuilt it within a couple of months. And in the same year, the famous food critic Duncan Hines first mentioned it in his restaurant guide, In Search of Good Food. There, the Colonel's chickens were listed as a special attraction in Kentucky.

Fortune of nickels

The years flew by in pleasant troubles, and Sanders was already counting on a calm old age, when his life once again presented an unpleasant surprise. At the very beginning of the 1950s, a new Federal Highway 75 was completed from the northern states to Florida, which passed away from Corbin. The flow of clients that began 20 years ago dried up overnight. Sanders floundered for another year, but in 1952 he no longer had enough money to support the restaurant and had to be auctioned off to pay off creditors. At 62, Sanders was once again without a job, a home, or money. The only thing he could count on was a state old-age pension - $105 a month.

To Garlan's credit, he took this disaster as an opportunity to feel 22 years younger, returning to his old life as a tumbleweed. He began to visit cafes and restaurants: first the nearby ones, then he got further and further from home. He carried with him a bag of his magic seasoning and his favorite pressure cooker. Arriving at the restaurant, Sanders asked permission to cook “Kentucky chicken” in front of the owner in 15 minutes, and then offered to put this chicken on the menu, promising an uninterrupted supply of his spice mixture. In exchange, he asked for 5 cents for each "Kentucky chicken" sold. Sanders did not sign any agreements - the deal was sealed with a handshake.

Driving from city to city by car is not an easy task, especially when not every restaurant agreed to cooperate. Sanders found his first partner only in Salt Lake City. It was the owner of the restaurant, Pete Harman.

And Garlan continued with stupid persistence to visit more and more restaurants. During this time, his wife stayed home to prepare the seasoning and distribute it to partner restaurants. "Claudia would take orders, pack the spice into small bags and ship them to customers on the overnight train," Sanders said. By the end of the 1950s, more than 200 eateries in the United States and Canada were selling “Kentucky fried chicken.” “Business was slow at first, but over time things began to pick up. I began to understand how Mr. Woolworth was able to organize such a large chain of his penny stores,” Sanders said, laughing. “Those nickels accumulate and grow into a fortune!”

Why should a millionaire work?

However, the business built by Sanders also had a significant drawback - it relied on Garlan himself, who was already over 70. The colonel personally sold franchises, was involved in marketing the network, and even tried to check every bag of spices. The heirs did not want to deal with chicken professionally. In general, when Sanders was offered to sell the Kentucky Fried Chicken business in 1964, he agreed.

The buyers were a pool of investors led by John Brown Jr., the future governor of Kentucky. They paid Garlan $2 million for the entire company in February 1964. At that time, the company had more than 600 franchises in the USA and Canada. Sanders also remains the company's public spokesman, earning a salary of $250,000 a year.

Although the colonel was now something of a Santa Claus in a white suit, he did his job honestly. He flew to all the countries where KFC establishments were now opening, and his luxurious limousine often visited children's parties. If he was asked why a millionaire should work in old age, he usually grinned: “There is no reason to be a rich man in a cemetery. Lying there, you cannot do business.”

At 84, he published his autobiography, Life as I have known it has been finger licking good. Having fulfilled this sacred duty of any successful American to society, he calmly, as he had dreamed all his life, lived for another six years, indulging in harmless pleasures, for example, playing masterful golf. The only thing that poisoned his life was the current "Kentucky Fried Chicken". “Everyone in the company is too carried away with commerce and cooks who knows what from chickens,” he once said in an interview. However, for his soul he still had his own restaurant, Claudia Sanders "Dinner House (he sold the right to his name in the name along with the business), where he always personally monitored the technology of cooking chicken. Garlan Sanders died of leukemia on December 16, 1980, when he was 90. The colonel was buried in his famous white suit with a black bow tie.

KFC restaurants are now open in many cities around the world.

What know-how did Sanders offer his franchisees?

1. A special seasoning of 11 herbs and spices for marinating chicken.

2. Technology for cooking chicken in a pressure cooker - the cooking time has been reduced from 30 to 15 minutes.

Five steps to a million

1. Farmer, streetcar conductor, American Army private, blacksmith's assistant, locomotive fireman, law student, insurance agent, furniture mover, ferry captain, tire salesman, and auto mechanic.

2. At 40, life is just beginning: Sanders decided to work for himself and opened his own auto repair shop... which sold fried chicken best of all.

3. At the age of 47, he followed the lead of his clients and opened his own restaurant.

4. At the age of 62, Colonel Sanders went completely broke when a new state highway passed away from his establishment.

5. Once again, pensioner Sanders began selling a franchise for the technology for preparing his fried chicken. And he became a millionaire at the age of 70.

Secret materials

The hype around the secret to Garlan Sanders' famous 11-herb and spice chicken seasoning continues. “Fast Food” host Gloria Pitzer once told Sanders on television that she had made a very similar seasoning using three cups of flour, a tablespoon of paprika, two packets of bouillon powder and two packets of Seven Seas seasoning. The colonel laughed: “You are a real cook!” Also, several books have already been published in the United States, the authors of which provide their own versions of the “Sanders seasoning.” KFC itself is adding fuel to the fire. The company officially claims that the entire recipe is known only to a few people in management, and the list itself never leaves a specially guarded safe.

Colonel's first pressure cooker

Still in the museum at the KFC Restaurant Supply Center in Louisville, Kentucky.

Resurrected

A few years after the death of Garlan Sanders, KFC ran commercials in which the Colonel closely resembles the original. Members of his family even said that when they saw them, they experienced superstitious horror.

Old Mason

Garlan Sanders has been a member of the Masonic Lodge since 1917. His grave is marked by a bust sculpted by his daughter Margaret. It has images of a Masonic square and compasses.