L to R: Harold Omer, Ray Danner and Lee Cummings. Danner was the owner of Shoney’s, which at the time owned the Famous Recipe franchise.
The founding of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken.
Lee Cummings, the nephew of Colonel Harland Sanders, spent his childhood in the kitchen of his Henryville, Indiana home. Lee hit the road with his Uncle Harland in 1952, selling their own special blend of spices along with their famous pressure cookers, which later became part of KFC’s “secret Recipe”. In three years, Lee and the Colonel opened over 800 KFC stores. In 1962, the Colonel sold KFC to John Y. Brown.
After the sale of KFC, Lee Cummings started developing his recipe later to be known as “Famous Recipe.” In 1966, Lee along with Harold Omer started “Harold’s Take-Home” in Lima, Ohio where Lee first introduced Famous Recipe Chicken.
By 1967, Lee and Bob Burick in Springfield, Ohio opened the fifth franchise store. Later that year, stores followed in Dayton and Cincinnati as well as in Michigan.
In 1972, Famous Recipe had 100 stores and by 1979 the number had doubled to 200. In 1981, Lee Cummings sold the chain to Shoney’s Restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee and in 1995, it was sold to RTM Restaurant Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
Locally, there are two major franchisees in the Miami Valley that keep the tradition of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken in the community.
Harold Omer was also a manager of aerospace engineering at Lima’s Westinghouse plant. Sometimes he would leave the office and go straight to his second job of frying chicken.
Harold K. Omer died in 1999. He is located in Section 100 of the Woodland Mausoleum.
Frederick H. Euchenhofer was born in Switzerland about 1812 and came to American when twenty years old. For a few years he lived in one of the eastern states and then moved to Miamisburg in 1836. Frederick opened a bakery and confectionery store there, running a successful business until 1848, when he came to Dayton. He purchased the old Columbus House and ran it as a hotel until 1863.
Otto Frederick Euchenhofer was born about 1857 in Dayton, Ohio. He belonged to the St. Luke’s German Lutheran Church. He was the father of four children.
David D. Albritton was an Olympic medalist, state legislator, and longtime Dayton businessman. He won a silver medal in the high-jumping competition at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, competing alongside his lifelong friend and Ohio State University teammate Jesse Owens. He established the world high jump record, at that time, with a leap of 6 feet, 9 and 7/8 inches. He later became a teacher and coach at Dunbar High School, where he led the team to three state track championships and broke the segregation barrier, leading the way for Dunbar to compete in the Public High School League. In 1960, Mr. Albritton was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. The Ohio Amateur Athlete of the Year award is named in Dave Albritton’s honor.
John B. Wager, August Becherer and Henry Hilgefort opened the Lager Beer Brewery about 1854. It was located on the southeast comer of Hickory and Brown Streets. In 1859, August decided to try it alone and bought out his partners. In 1861, Becherer took on Henry Hussmann as a partner and changed the name to Ohio Brewery. Three years later Hussmann had had enough and left to open a grocery store. August tried again, taking on Phillip Ritter as a partner in 1868, but it only lasted two years. He finally found a lasting partner in Frank Becherer, who became part owner in 1870 and stayed with the company until it was sold to Michael Seubert and Otto C. R. Wilke in 1879. August went on to open the Oakwood Brewery that same year and Frank went to work for August.