Homestead Golden Fried Chicken, 1986. Image by Hurstville Council.
It’s hard to tell, but the above picture is the only photograph I could find of West Hurstville’s Homestead Chicken restaurant on the corner of Forest Road and Gloucester Road.
WATERMARKED UPDATE: Thanks to readers Chris and Jade, a photo of Hurstville Homestead in its glory days has been located via Hurstville Library! And you know what that means…watermarks. Enjoy:
Homestead Chicken, Hurstville, 1987. Image courtesy Hurstville Library (in case you weren’t sure).
Homestead sold a variety of KFC-esque chicken products, and had a number of locations around south Sydney. This one seems to have been custom built in 1986 (it does not appear in a 1985 overhead photo), closed around 1990, and was replaced and refitted by…
KFC, West Hurstville, 2009. Image by museumofinanity, Flickr.
The Kentucky Fried Chicken (are we still calling it that?) stood here until 2009, when this happened. The problems must have been bad enough to dissuade all potential buyers hoping to use the site as a restaurant, which brings us to today.
Hire One, 2012.
This must be Sydney’s third equpiment hire place with drive thru facilities, after the Kennards at Padstow and Complete Hire at Canterbury. Homestead Chicken was unique for its particularly odd drive thru mechanism, which is still in place:
This served as a kind of dumbwaiter, with the customer putting their payment in a tray that was then lifted up and into the restaurant. The food would be delivered the same way. Perhaps ironically, this relatively hands-free system was intended to be more hygienic.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 
there used to be a homestead store at west gosford its now a red rooster
I remember going to this place when it was Homestead Golden Fried Chicken when I was very young. I remember they had a large wooden cartwheel by the door and the light fittings hanging inside, from the ceiling were small cartwheels. They had the best hot chips with chicken salt. I also went here often when it was Kentucky Fried Chicken, my mother hated that drive through machine, it was a pain in the arse.
I had totally forgotten about Homestead Chicken! Don’t think I ever ate at one, but I vaguely recall their ads.
I remember clearly eating Homestead Golden Fried Chicken when i was very young. The chips had to be my favourite, it taste so good. Gosh, i miss that…
I remember going to Homestead Chicken in Hurstville on the day it opened. I’m pretty sure that there was some sort of freebie involved 🙂 I agree with Ika, the chips were divine. There was also one at Kingsford, on the corner of Barker Street and Anzac Parade. I would often pop over from UNSW for a feed as a student in the early 80s.
The large buildings on the right, opposite Homestead in the first photo, were built on the site of a Holden dealership. I can’t remember what they originally traded as, however in the dying days of the business I think it was Suttons. Up the road a few hundred metres, of course, was Dominelli Ford. They used to drag out a Ferdie Bird suit (with some poor sweltering bloke in it) at promotions, and I remember being very excited to meet the Bird himself at a school fete!
Very interesting to read about the history of this site in West Hurstville – i don’t remember it being anything other than a kentucky fried chicken, guess I was just too young.
Also, thanks for the photo credit! Glad to see it on such an interesting and fascinating site!
I’m from New Zealand (Wellington). Now living in Sydney Australia. I remember “HOMESTEAD” in Porirua 1983, down at the Porirua shopping centre. Dat was back in the Old-Skool-Days. My in-law, he alway’s get Homestead Chicken and Sweet-breads were my favourites and the Cheese Cakes. And I still remember them “HOMESTEAD” white foam Box, to keep your Chicken nice, hot & fresh. And yes Sweet-breads was my favourite and the Cheese Cakes. I Can’t STOP THINKIN’ About it.
Thanks for the Memories.
Lol I would’ve been 4 or so we also lived in wellington porirua ,but I remember it yum
My mum goes on about the sweetbreads which anyday I want to recreate crumbed I believe she said :)fond memories!
I remember homestead chicken in Wellington nearly across the road from the tramways hotel those potatoes button crumbed mushrooms and yes those sweet bread mmmm not a bread but a gland from the sheep the coleslaw a flavour of its own and that chicken I prefer that over KFC ahh the good old days
I have fond memories of this store. I was three when it closed and we had turned up one night to get dinner before realising it had shut down. That sent me into tears! Their mushrooms were the only mushrooms I would ever eat as a child. Chicken Express was the company that took over Homestead in 1991, but they had no stores in the St George area. We used to use the drive through often, particularly in the KFC days. It was a fairly strange way of ordering takeaway!
The Homestead drive thru dumbwaiter was used because the carpark was situated the wrong way around for a traditional drive thru. Driver couldnt drive to window.
Remember Homestead from when I was quite young and can still sometimes almost taste the mushrooms – something my mother and I reminisce about lol and I would die to have some again!