KFC has opened a restaurant called Open House in McKinney, Texas, designed to serve guests while functioning as a live laboratory for the chain's more than 3,500 U.S. restaurants.

The brand says the location will help it learn what works and identify ideas worth scaling across the system. The unit breaks from the standard KFC format in several operational respects.

Open House features an expanded menu and extended dayparts, including breakfast and late-night options. The addition of breakfast gives the restaurant a sales window that most traditional KFC units do not capture, while late-night service extends revenue potential into hours when standard locations are typically closed.

The restaurant also offers table service, a service model change that carries labor implications for any potential systemwide rollout. Full-service-style table delivery requires additional staff compared with counter service, and KFC would need to weigh those labor costs against incremental check growth before expanding the format.

On the drive-thru side, the McKinney unit operates dual drive-thru lanes plus a dedicated mobile pickup lane. Dual lanes increase throughput capacity at peak periods, while a separate mobile pickup lane separates digital orders from the conventional queue — a capacity play aimed at protecting speed of service as digital order volume grows. KFC, like other Yum Brands chains, has pushed digital ordering aggressively, and dedicated pickup infrastructure reduces the risk that digital orders slow the traditional lane.

The structure positions Open House as a testing ground rather than a one-off flagship. Concepts that prove out — whether menu items, daypart extensions, service models or drive-thru configurations — could then be rolled out to KFC's U.S. system, which spans more than 3,500 restaurants.

The company has not specified which initiatives will graduate from the test kitchen to the broader chain, or on what timeline. Expect subsequent systemwide announcements to trace back to what the McKinney unit demonstrates over the coming months.