When you hear that a restaurant is burning, you think grease fire. But in the case of a Bronx establishment, it was actually arson - by way of a next-door neighbor/business rival! A Kennedy Fried Chicken owner decided enough was enough when his neighbor, a Twin Donut owner, started to sell cheaper fried chicken. So the Kennedy Fried Chicken owner Kabeer Ahmad "hammered a hole in the wall between the two stores, sprayed in some gasoline, tossed in a match." Um, crazy!
The fire, which occurred early yesterday morning, was a two-alarm fire, and luckily no one was injured. Ahmad confessed that business was bad and fire marshal Robert Pinto
“The chicken guy was mad at the doughnut guy because the doughnut guy started selling fried chicken, and the doughnut guy was undercutting the chicken guy’s prices by 50 cents a plate,” Mr. Pinto said. “The chicken guy was losing a lot of business and he had gotten some violations from the Health Department. So he was going to plan on shutting his business down and renovating to correct the health code violations. At the same time he was feuding with the doughnut guy, telling the doughnut guy not to sell the chicken.”
Twin Donut owner Mike Chor said that prices were for a grand opening and that Ahmad never said anything to him. Chor told the Daily News, "It's lucky I have another store or I would have a big problem."
Ahmad's fried chicken restaurant was only slightly damaged; Pinto said that Ahmad wasn't worried about damage as he did have insurance. Hello, renovations! Ahmad was charged with arson; neighbors were shocked, saying that he would give leftovers to the homeless.
Photograph of a Kennedy Fried Chicken in East Harlem by Satan's Laundromat
