[3] Later that year, Cummings opened the restaurant's first franchise in Columbus, Ohio.

Locations in Springfield, Dayton, and Cincinnati, Ohio followed in the coming years, as well as a unit in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

[citation needed] In 1981, Cummings sold the chain to Shoney's Restaurants in Nashville, Tennessee.

In October 2003, Lee's Famous Recipes Inc. purchased the chain from RTM.

In June 2021, Famous Recipe Group, LLC, brand owner of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken agreed to sell the brand to LFR Chicken, LLC a new entity backed by Artemis Lane Partners.