What Makes Claudia Sanders Dinner House a Shelbyville Landmark?

Claudia Sanders Dinner House has been a Shelbyville landmark since 1968, when Colonel Harland Sanders and his wife Claudia opened the restaurant beside their Blackwood Hall home on U.S. 60. More than half a century later, guests still drive from Louisville, Lexington, and across Kentucky to sit down for family-style Southern cooking in a setting that feels like stepping back in time.

What makes the Dinner House a landmark is not just its famous founders — it is the consistency of the food, the warmth of the service, and the fact that very little has changed about how the kitchen works. Breads are still baked every morning. Soups and salad dressings are still made in-house. Croutons are still cut by hand. Eight scratch-made vegetables are still served family-style with unlimited refills, and every plate is cooked to order.

A Restaurant Founded on Family Recipes

Colonel Harland Sanders and Claudia moved to Shelbyville in 1959. Their knowledge of Southern recipes and their love of the restaurant business led them to open a dinner house of their own. It was first called The Colonel's Lady and was later renamed in Claudia's honor. The restaurant is independently owned and operated, separate from the KFC franchise the Colonel built.

The family-style service model — where vegetables, rolls, and certain entrées come to the table for everyone to share — was a deliberate choice. It reflects the way the Sanders family served meals at home, and it remains the signature experience that sets the Dinner House apart from other Southern restaurants in the region.

What Guests Come For

The most popular reason guests make the drive is the all-you-can-eat fried chicken, which is part of every Family Dinner. The chicken is hand-breaded and cooked to order, served alongside four scratch-made vegetables, soup or salad, and unlimited homemade yeast rolls. The Kentucky Hot Brown, sugar-cured country ham, and New York strip steak are also guest favorites.

• All-you-can-eat fried chicken with Family Dinners (dine-in only)
• Eight scratch-made vegetables served family-style with unlimited refills
• Homemade yeast rolls baked fresh every morning
• Kentucky Hot Brown, sugar-cured ham, pork chops, and fried chicken livers
• Homemade pies and cakes, including Claudia's Kentucky Pie with pecans and chocolate chips
• Weekend breakfast served Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM

More Than a Dining Room

The Dinner House is also a gathering place for celebrations. Four banquet rooms seat from 55 to 450 guests, with standing room for 1,000 in the Colonel's Quarters. Weddings, corporate dinners, birthdays, reunions, and tour groups all find a home here, with menus customized to each group and a full bar with room for a live band.

If the restaurant caters your wedding reception, use of the facility for your ceremony — indoors or in the courtyard garden — is free of charge. The same scratch-made food from the dining room is available for catering across Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

Rebuilt After the 1999 Fire

The original building burned the day after Mother's Day in 1999. It was rebuilt with larger banquet facilities and a state-of-the-art kitchen while maintaining the country charm of the old Dinner House. The restaurant reopened and has continued serving the same Southern recipes that made it a landmark in the first place.

Plan Your Visit

Claudia Sanders Dinner House is at 3202 Shelbyville Rd, Shelbyville, KY 40065, on U.S. 60 east of Louisville. Parking is on site and tour buses are welcome. The restaurant is open Wednesday through Friday from 11 AM to 8 PM and Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM to 8 PM, with breakfast served on weekends. It is closed Monday and Tuesday.