By Elesha George
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When KFC re-opened for business on Friday morning, patrons were already lined up outside its three branches.
It was the first time since April 2, when the government mandated a 24-hour lockdown, that the popular fast food restaurant was permitted to open.
Although they’re open for deliveries only and are serving a limited menu, that did not prevent scores of customers from flocking to their favourite eatery.
In fact, some of them had been religiously monitoring the weekly Cabinet press briefings, wanting to know when KFC would be back in operation.
When the three branches of the fast food restaurant opened their doors at 10 am on Friday, its patrons did not disappoint. From morning until close to the 5 pm closing, there was bumper to bumper traffic at the Buckley Line, Fort Road, and Old Parham Road branches.
Head of Traffic, Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Rodney Ellis told Observer that the police had anticipated the influx of patrons and soon after news of the reopening was announced, his department had organised a meeting with the managers of KFC on Thursday.
“We blocked off the entrance on Old Parham Road going into KFC and Inet … on Fort Road we advised them that we should have persons entering from Penny Lane, where they have the exit area and make a turn inside the compound to enter, so they could not enter from Anchorage Road,” Ellis informed.
Special arrangements also had to be made for customers using the Buckley Line branch, which eventually caused the backup of traffic to ease.
Overall, ASP Ellis said, “there were no major issues. Yes, there was a build up at Buckleys earlier this [Friday] morning but after persons understood what we were doing they complied”.
A number of memes and Facebook posts have surfaced since Wednesday, some of which predicted those long lines as some people would seek to take a break from home cooked meals.
However, others were happy that they could finally go shopping while everyone else would be at KFC.