Dixie Lee Fried Chicken
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| Privately held company | |
| Industry | Fast food (Fried Chicken) |
| Founded | 1964 in Belleville, Ontario |
| Headquarters | Kingston, Ontario, Canada |
| Products | Fish & Chips Fried Chicken |
| Website | dixieleechicken.com |
Dixie Lee is a regional franchised fried chicken fast-food restaurant founded in Belleville, Ontario in 1964 by Ramon Leon Walmsley and now based in Kingston and Bruce Mines, Ontario, near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Its largest group of franchise operators is Dixie Lee Maritimes, based in New Brunswick with 38 locations in two provinces. The parent organization is the direct franchisor of ten restaurants in small-town Ontario.
The first Dixie Lee restaurant opened in 1964 in Belleville, Ontario.
The first Dixie Lee restaurant in New Brunswick opened its door in Caraquet in a small take-out restaurant just past the wharf. It moved to a new location, following a fire during a winter storm, where is now situated Cinéma Vidéo, not far from what was once the Enfant-Jésus hospital and adjacent to the Petro-Canada gas station. It then moved to a bigger building in the mid-1990s, where the Trio-Éclatant's clothing store used to be. Other restaurants opened in Grande-Anse, Shippagan, Tracadie-Sheila and then in Lamèque. The Tracadie-Sheila location is one of the biggest Dixie Lee restaurants in New-Brunswick, and one of the first to include a drive-through function.
In 1974, Alton Scott, owner of a Dixie Lee in , built and operated a U.S. location in Houlton, Maine which went bankrupt in 1981. A 1970s location franchised in Ogdensburg, New York was sold in 2012.
By 1975, the chain claimed "over 101 fried chicken and seafood takeout stores in the U.S. and Canada" and was actively recruiting new franchisees through a U.S. office in Massena, New York. Many of these locations were existing restaurants under local branding who carried Dixie Lee chicken as a sideline.
David Silvester started in the business in 1977 as an owner/operator of a single Dixie Lee outlet in Castlegar, British Columbia. He then acquired a Dixie Lee area franchise for British Columbia where he opened and sold 17 franchises. After developing British Columbia, he bought the Dixie Lee franchise parent company in 1979. Silvester moved to Dixie Lee's Head Office in Belleville. He was responsible for developing Dixie Lee from eight outlets in Ontario to more than 50 by 1987; he sold the company in January 2006.
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Wikipedia