Hogarth today would find all Britain in the chicken shop

In this world there are two kinds of people: those who think of a chicken as something you keep in your garden, and those who only ever see one fried. The first kind won’t be too worried by the news that KFC has run out of its major – some would say only – product. Millions of others, though, will feel its absence sharply.

For in Britain’s biggest cities chicken shops are more than just places to eat: they are community spaces, youth clubs, impromptu therapists’ offices and party venues. From the afternoon into the small hours of the morning a kaleidoscope of characters whirls between their plastic-topped tables, playing out scenes from the idyllic to the Hogarthian. And if KFC can’t host them, there are thousands of competitors that will.

You’ve probably seen them, clustered along the high street with implausible density, five or 10 side by side. They serve chicken fried in crispy golden batter, sometimes alongside pizza and kebabs. Their signs are always red, white and blue, and they have names like Dixie Fried Chicken, Dallas Fried Chicken, Orlando or Tennessee; there are Chicken Shacks, Chicken Cottages and a Favourite Chicken. This uniform style is the work of one Morris Cassanova, otherwise known as “Mr Chicken”, who claimed before his death to have designed 90 per cent of the chicken shop signs in London. Many were founded by former KFC franchisees, who chafed under its strict rules. They took their chicken-frying knowledge and set up on their own, sometimes becoming strict franchises in their turn.

In south and east London you can’t help but notice the brisk exodus of teenagers who gather inside and outside the chicken shops after school. The shops serve as after-school clubs where teenagers can hang out, socialise and kill time before they go home. The cynic in me wonders whether shops deliberately congregate close to schools, but the meals start at 99p and if I were a teenager today, I’d certainly be there.

Chicken shop employees really care about their regulars, too. One man in Kentish Town told me it’s important for him to de-stress his customers and make sure they “leave smiling”. They opened up to him about their problems, and he sometimes felt like a counsellor or a “social worker”. Another shop held a wake for a valued regular customer. Staff come from all over: in east London I met a man who came from Afghanistan in 2006 and was studying economics, while another in Brick Lane sent money to his family in India, whom he rarely saw. He was proud to tell me how people came in specifically asking to be served by him and no one else.

It’s exhausting work. Some owners pull 16-hour days, from 12pm to 4am, six days a week. And these graveyard shifts put them on the front lines of Britain’s late-night culture. I heard of one customer going into an establishment, smashing it up, placing his head on the counter and asking the staff to cut it off with a kebab knife. A few weeks later he came back to apologise and explain that his friends had spiked his drink with drugs. Another customer vaulted over the counter and attacked a staff member with a stool, cutting his head open.

Every chicken shop has a dozen such stories. All human life is here, good and bad. But by and large they are happy places: microcosms of modern Britain, which serve the poor and privileged alike.