KFC Is Still Doing These 5 Things Right In 2026, Despite All The Hate

When Coldplay's Chris Martin wrote "Viva La Vida" in 2008, the rueful lament of a once-powerful figure, he may very well have been writing from the perspective of KFC in 2026. (Maybe he can see the future but only as it pertains to fast food — a very limited superpower, but not without its uses.) Once synonymous with fast food fried chicken, KFC is no longer the undisputed monarch of the crispy poultry kingdom. Competition from onetime regional concerns like Chick-fil-A as well as scrappy up-and-comers like Raising Cane's have diminished its market share to just 8% (down from 20% in 2015). There's also the fact that KFC's product is widely perceived as lacking: Redditors have declared KFC the worst fried chicken chain, and nothing it sells gets the same love offered to Chick-fil-A's chicken sandwiches or Raising Cane's iconic Cane Sauce.

Don't shed too many tears for KFC just yet. For one thing, it's still doing well financially, especially outside of the United States. (It's surely no coincidence that KFC abroad is often described as vastly superior to its American counterpart.) For another thing, it's still doing plenty of things right. Granted, your definition of "right" may differ from mine, but as someone who generally reaches for KFC before Chick-fil-A (whose chicken often strikes me as cloyingly sweet), I can attest that KFC is doing better than you might think.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm a completely neutral party here. The truth of the matter is KFC sells those wonderful biscuits as a side and the other fried chicken chains don't, and that's always going to be a major point in its favor for me. Popeyes also sells biscuits, but it's a different kind of biscuit (one which people with better taste than me say is the better choice, but fie, I say); Raising Cane's offers Texas toast, which is tasty but not the same; and Chick-fil-A only sells its biscuits at breakfast. If I lived near a Bojangles with its legendary 49-step biscuits maybe I'd have a different opinion, but I don't so this is what you get.

When they're hot, they're perfect for prying open with your thumbs and smearing with butter, but on a good day you won't even need extra butter for spreading. They're sweet and crumbly and leave little morsels at the bottom of the box for you to enjoy. It's true they can turn hard as a rock if you let them cool for too long, but there's an easy way around that: Eat them while the steam still rises.

Haven't you heard? Bone-in fried chicken is donezo, daddy-o! It's the mayor of Squaresville! All the cool kids these days are dipping their chicken strips in Cane Sauce or indulging in chicken sandwiches where the buns are almost as flat as the chicken patty. We guess we can't blame anyone for a bit of trepidation. Not only does bone-in chicken leave a mess behind, it also reminds you the thing you're eating used to be, you know, alive (and probably didn't have too good a time of it when it was living).

But you know what, there's something about eating bone-in chicken, isn't there? You bring a drumstick to your lips and feel like Henry VIII chowing down on one of those giant turkey legs you get at the renaissance fair. Picking apart a thigh piece to get the choicest, tenderest bits is part of the fun. It's nice to have options (KFC also offers chicken sandwiches and chicken strips), but it's just as nice to put the "finger lickin'" back in Finger Lickin' Good. Just make sure you bury the bones deep in your garbage can or your dog may go fishing.

Every fast food restaurant has a few discontinued items fans will always long for. Sometimes they get their wish (McDonald's brings back the McRib so often it's basically a seasonal item), but other times they're left standing outside corporate headquarters playing "In Your Eyes" on a boombox. KFC doesn't bring everything back (it doesn't seem like we'll be getting the return of the legendary Double Down sandwich any time soon), but it has brought back two of the most fervently wished-for items on KFC fans' list.

Do you remember when those potato wedges were discontinued? That was a bummer. KFC replaced those flaky, hearty wedges with brittle french fries that were alarmingly salty even for fast food. Well, in 2025, they returned after five years; ostensibly for a limited time, but a year later you can still get them. And in 2026, popcorn chicken made its long-awaited return to the rejoicing of the faithful eager to dip tiny pieces of crunchy chicken in sauce. Could you argue these were calculated ploys to win back good will at a time when KFC's place is slipping? Perhaps, but I'm not one to look a gift bucket in the mouth.

Even as a certified KFC defender, I have to admit that it's losing the Sauce Wars pretty handily. You can buy Chick-fil-A's sauces at your local supermarket (courtesy of The Manzetti Company), and Raising Cane's sauce is so popular people have bought it in 32-ounce increments. KFC, on the other hand, has the usual assortment of fast food sauces (ranch, honey mustard, barbecue, The Spicy One, etc.) as well as an original sauce that's similar to Chick-fil-A sauce but without the cult fandom. But credit where it's due: KFC is taking the initiative and working to bring its sauce line up to par.

In a pivot clearly intended to compete with the dippable chicken chains of the world, KFC announced a new sauce pantry with over 20 kinds of sauce, some old and some new. Two of the new sauces are the sweet and spicy Honey Chili Crisp and the fairly self-explanatory Jalapeño Ranch. There are plenty of others available abroad (including a whopping 11 new ones in Australia, such as Chimichurri Ranch and Smoky Maple), and we're willing to bet we'll see more in the future.

You know what we need to do more of these days? Save money. Things are getting expensive and it's not looking like it'll get resolved anytime soon so we might as well trim some dollars off the margins where we can. Thankfully, KFC is looking to help us do just that with the introduction of its Go Buckets. Americans are a bunch of inveterate snackers, which means there's an opportunity to provide a hearty, filling pick-me-up in the middle of the day. You can get a handful of nuggets, a couple of wings or a tender, and some fries or wedges, and it'll only set you back $3.49.

It's also adding value by taking after Taco Bell with its Value Feast Boxes. For $7, $9, or $11, you can get some kind of menu item (KFC Snackers and nuggets, say, or a whole chicken sandwich) with fries, wedges, and a drink. It's sorely needed for those of us wanting to save a buck, but also for KFC itself to offer some relief.