By Steve Short
One of Milan’s busiest restaurants has moved into a new, state-of-the-art building at 3099 S. First Street, today.
Lee’s Famous Recipe, which employs about 45 people and serves an estimated 3,500-4,000 customers weekly according to owners, has demolish its current building at 3107 S. First Street.
“We decided to make an investment for the future and for Milan,” said owner John Erdmann about the move. “The current building was not built to do what we’re doing. It’s one of the busiest buildings in the Lee’s Famous Recipe chain, which has about 140 stores.”
Erdmann recalled previous innovations when the restaurant added crispy and roasted style chicken and a drive-through lane.
“Milan has always responded when we made changes in the past,” Erdmann said, “We hope they will like the new building.”
The new 3,700 sq. ft. building, being built by Fisher Construction of Milan, has a 72-seat dining area under a high, vaulted ceiling; a much larger kitchen and cooler-freezer storage areas, top of the line safety measures, and double drive-through lanes for takeout orders. There will also be more parking spaces in front and behind. The former Milan Farmers Market structure nearby can be used as an outdoor, patio dining area.
John Erdmann’s son, Charles Erdmann is managing both the Lee’s restaurant and Chow Wagon, another of Milan’s most popular eateries, located on E. Van Hook. Together, the two restaurants employ about 100 total people. “We’re proud of what we’re doing,” said Charles Erdmann about the businesses.
The new Lee’s Famous Recipe building was about five years in the planning. The design is different from other buildings in the restaurant chain, the Milan owners said. Charles Erdmann collaborated with the L & P architecture-design firm of Nashville to design the building.
“We spared no expense and got everything we needed and wanted,” Erdmann said, “There’s no building like this in the Lee’s system. The food will be fresher, orders prepared faster, and it will taste better than ever before. I thought we did good business before, but now we’ll be better than ever.”
Parking on the South First Street side of the new store will not be open for about six weeks after demolition of the old building. During that time, customers can access the new restaurant building from Cunningham Street.
The Lee’s Famous Recipe location was previously the site of the popular Pappy’s Drive-In. An old Pappy’s sign is still at the site. When the old Lee’s store is demolished, Charles Erdmann said he plans to save the old Pappy’s sign, which has been at the site since the 1960s.
“You’ll see it again someday,” he said about the sign.
The sloped, red awning on the new Lee’s building is a tip of the cap to the old Pappy’s building, Erdmann said.
The John Erdmann family has operated the popular Lee’s Famous Recipe restaurant in Milan since Sept. 1985. The Lee’s Famous Recipe restaurant chain was started in 1966 by Harold Omer and Lee Cummings, nephew of Colonel Harland Sanders who founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain in 1952.
According to published histories, Cummings traveled with Sanders in the early 1950s selling pressure cookers to cook chicken and a recipe of 11 herbs and spices, which later became part of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “Secret Recipe.” In just three years, Cummings and Sanders opened over 800 Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.
After a sale of Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants in 1962, Cummings began developing his own fried chicken recipe, known as the “Famous Recipe.”
Cummings opened Lee’s Famous Recipe in Milan in 1975 and ran it for three years. It was in a former cinder block laundromat building owned by Southgate Pharmacy drugstore owner Bill Jones. The Lee’s restaurant was then operated by Sara and Milton Cooke for seven years.
John Erdmann had worked in the Lee’s corporate office in Cincinnati before acquiring the Milan store in 1985. The Lee’s chain was owned by Shoney’s for some time and is now listed under Famous Recipe Group LLC.
(PHOTO & STORY – Courtesy Victor Parkins, Milan Mirror Exchange)
David Thomas, Twitter – @DavidThomasWNWS
https://www.facebook.com/NewsTalk1015/
