{"id":812049,"date":"2025-02-16T18:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T16:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=812049"},"modified":"2025-02-16T18:27:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T16:27:18","slug":"the-man-who-built-south-africas-largest-fried-chicken-takeaway-restaurant-chain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/812049\/the-man-who-built-south-africas-largest-fried-chicken-takeaway-restaurant-chain\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who built South Africa’s largest fried chicken takeaway restaurant chain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

George Sombonos is the man behind Chicken Licken, the world’s most successful non-American-owned fried chicken franchise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos had food in his blood. He was the son of a Greek immigrant restaurant owner who came to South Africa during the Second World War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father owned the Dairy Den restaurant in Ridgeway, Johannesburg, where Sombonos learned about the trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea for Chicken Licken had its origins in the early seventies, when Sombonos visited the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy father was very strict. However, once a year, he would throw an airline ticket at you at the dinner table and say, \u2018Go to America\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his visits to the United States, he would walk down a street and eat a specific type of food for the whole day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne day, I would eat around twenty pieces of chicken from different restaurants. The next day, I would eat twelve hamburgers from different outlets,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI could not afford a car, so I walked down the street from one food shop to the next. There were no girls or anything else. It was just food,\u201d said Sombonos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was so fanatical about gathering valuable information about food and restaurants in the United States that he once landed in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn one restaurant, I sat there for two hours nursing a coffee. They called the police as they thought I was planning a robbery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos repeated the same exercise, visiting the United States and sampling food, for three years before he struck gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1972, he visited a restaurant in Waco, Texas, and found excellent fried chicken. \u201cI ate the chicken, and it was fantastic. I returned the next day, and it was the same,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos showed the owner his South African passport and asked if he would sell the recipe. \u201cNo, it was my grandmother\u2019s recipe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos would not give up. He took the owner for dinner and ensured that the wine flowed throughout the evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of the evening, the restaurant owner told me to come and see him in the morning,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day, the owner agreed to sell the recipe for $5,000. \u201cI did not have close to $5,000. I only had $1,000,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The $1,000 exchanged hands, and the restaurant owner gave him the recipe. However, Sombonos wasn\u2019t sure it was the actual recipe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After he returned to South Africa, he mixed the spices in his bedroom and secretly replaced the Dairy Den restaurant chicken spices with his own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dairy Den\u2019s fried chicken sales started to increase, and customers commented on the improvement in the taste of the chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father did not know what changed and correctly assumed that his son, George Sombonos, was behind it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, they have used the new recipe Sombonos bought from the restaurant in Waco, Texas, for $1,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Sombonos starts Chicken Licken<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Sombonos expanded Dairy Den\u2019s operations, including serving customers in their cars outside the restaurant and launching a drive-through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After his father died in 1980, he decided to open his own restaurant on the site of the Dairy Den in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first choice for his new restaurant name was Golden Fried Chicken. However, it was too descriptive to be registered as a trademarked brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the waiters suggested calling the new restaurant Chicken Licken, based on the name of a nursery book. \u201cHe brought me the book, and I gave him R300 as a thank you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A graphic artist created the head of a chicken as a logo, for which Sombonos paid R75. \u201cFor R375, we had a name and a logo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1981, he opened the first Chicken Licken restaurant and its fried chicken with the trusted recipe was an instant hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicken Licken was so successful that Sombonos sold two franchises in Soweto and Alexandra the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This growth scared Kentucky Fried Chicken, now known as KFC, which had launched operations in South Africa a decade earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kentucky Fried Chicken launched legal action against Chicken Licken, arguing that its name resembles its payoff line, \u2018It\u2019s finger-lickin\u2019 good\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He told Leader<\/a> that the trademark lawyers said if he wanted to fight to keep the name, it would cost R10,000 to fight KFC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI borrowed the money from my mother, finished my shift and drove to Pretoria with the R10,000 in a Chicken Licken packet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe receptionist was there alone as the bosses had gone for the day. Uneasy about entrusting her with the money, I told her I had 10 pieces of chicken for them, and I left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, I phoned to enquire if they got the money. They started running around, literally, like headless chickens,\u201d he laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that Sombonos won the case against Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Chicken Licken kept its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicken Licken shows strong growth<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Chicken Licken gained tremendous traction in South African townships in the eighties thanks to its franchise model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos told Leader<\/a> that he initially gave away the franchises in Soweto and Alexandra to spur on growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The success enabled him to start selling franchises in 1985 for R3,000, which included equipment and stock worth R15,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t charge royalties for the first four months. As a result, I didn\u2019t make much money,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, we were expanding, and by then, we had 21 stores.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the democratic elections in 1994, the change in demographics allowed Chicken Licken to launch in higher income areas and upmarket shopping malls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2007, Chicken Licken was ranked second after KFC in the Fast Food and Restaurant Chains category of the Sunday Times Markinor 2007 Top Brands Survey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2013, Chicken Licken had 259 outlets, 247 in South Africa and 12 in Botswana, and sold more than 400,000 chickens and five million hot wings a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos died in November 2016 following a battle with cancer. Chicken Licken said it \u2018stood in awe of his legacy\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will remember his dedication, ingenuity and respect, not only as our CEO, but that of a family man of great integrity,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a privilege being led by a man of George\u2019s stature. His business acumen was second to none.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was a tastemaker, a trendsetter, and a pioneer who stood for what was right when everybody around him went the path of least resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sombonos\u2019 daughter, Chantal Sombonos-Van Tonder, has taken over the Chicken Licken business as managing director and chief marketer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chicken Licken photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George Sombonos is the man behind Chicken Licken, the world’s most successful non-American-owned fried chicken franchise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":812055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[21746,21526,21745,21744],"class_list":["post-812049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-chantal-sombonos-van-tonder","tag-chicken-licken","tag-dairy-den","tag-george-sombonos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812049"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812097,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812049\/revisions\/812097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}