Finger-lickin' good for 40 years
Kentucky Fried Chicken honors local restaurant owner

For the past 40 years, Leroy Gabaldon has been serving up chicken 'the Colonel's way,' operating franchises for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Gallup. Gabaldon got his start in the food industry working at Earl's Restaurant as a cook and has been serving local diners' needs ever since. (Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent)

By Bill Donovan
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Forget Colonel Sanders.

For the past 40 years, Gallup and area residents have looked upon Leroy Gabaldon as being Mr. KFC.

And it all began by accident.

Some 40 years ago, he and a friend decided to go on a hunting trip south of Gallup and somehow took a wrong turn and ended up in Las Vegas, Nev.

Well, they decided while they were in Las Vegas, they may as well try their luck on the tables and discovered that their bad luck was still with them so they headed home, only to hit snowstorm near Flagstaff.

Hoping to get out of the snow, they headed south and as they headed for Phoenix, Gabaldon's luck changed and they decided to stop over at a restaurant.

The restaurant, of course, was a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

"I had never seen one of these before," said Gabaldon. But once he tasted the chicken, he knew that his days of working for Earl's Curb and Go (a forerunner of Earl's Restaurant) was over.

"It was the best damn chicken I had ever ate," he said.

He decided on the way back to Gallup that he had to have his own franchise, so he got a couple of his friends, including the current sheriff of McKinley County, Felix Begay, to go with him to help drive.

So they headed off to Shelbyville, Tenn., the home of one Col. Harlan Sanders, the founder of KFC.

They found him in his garage and Gabaldon told him of his experience and his desire to own his own franchise in a place called Gallup, N.M.

Sanders had never heard of Gallup but after checking Gabaldon's credentials, he was the proud owner of not only the first KFC franchise in Gallup but the owner of the first fast-food franchise in the city's history.

The franchise cost him $1,000 and with another $17,000 he was in business. Today, the franchise fee is $25,000 and with the cost of a building, it takes about $1 million to open up your own restaurant.

Gabaldon was honored by KFC recently for his 40 years in the business. He said at the banquet there were only two other franchisers who were being honored for 45 years in the business.

Col. Sanders never made it to Gallup but he has had a major impact on Gabaldon's life, not only by giving him an opportunity to go into business for himself, but by giving him a philosophy.

Gabaldon said he heard Sanders talk one time about what it takes to be successful and he not only remembered it but he lived by it.

"If you want to be successful, spend your days working and not at the golf course," Sanders said and Gabaldon has followed this philosophy, opening up franchises not only in Gallup and Tse Bonito but in several other cities in Arizona and New Mexico.

Today, he only owns the one on the east side of Gallup and although he is semi-retired, KFC is still a major part of his life as well as that of other members of his family.

His brother, Leo, has owned five restaurants over the years and his niece, Velda, and her husband, Tony, presently own two restaurants.

And he's proud to say that whether there have been good times or bad times, business at KFC has always been good.

In fact, in the early years, when he had no competition from other fast-food restaurants, people were lined up at the door to buy his chicken. Then, even when competition opened up, the lines continued and business continued to be good.

Gabaldon remembers going to one of Sander's birthday parties years ago in Louisville.

"The Colonel came and sat at our table," Gabaldon said. "He looked at us and asked where we were from. I told him New Mexico and he replied, "You are a pretty big Indian.'"