 Kentucky Fried Chicken
Marietta, GA
Photo courtesy Don Whitten
Yes, that really is a giant chicken above Kentucky Fried Chicken in Marietta. With rolling eyes and a beak that opens and closes, the enormous bird does considerably more than identify a restaurant. It turns an ordinary fast-food stop into the kind of roadside sight that makes passengers reach for their cameras.
The Big Chicken first appeared in the early 1960s above a local restaurant and remained after the property became a KFC. A major restoration in the 1990s helped preserve the familiar figure and its moving features. Locals adopted it as a reference point for directions, giving “turn at the Big Chicken” a meaning that didn’t require a street address.
UPDATE: The Big Chicken continues to mark an operating KFC and remains one of Marietta’s best-known landmarks. Its animated eyes and beak carry on the original attention-getting idea. Not many restaurant signs become part of a community’s everyday vocabulary, but this bird certainly earned its place. 08-26
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