KFC will open its first high-altitude Italian restaurants on December 5, and a majority shareholder in the mountain operator hosting one of them says he will sue to stop it.

The fried-chicken chain plans two locations on Italy's most exclusive ski slopes: Cortina d'Ampezzo and Madonna di Campiglio. KFC will run both through a partnership with Super G, an Italian company that specializes in mountain restaurants and après-ski entertainment. The Cortina outlet will sit on Mount Faloria, inside the Faloria Mountain Club.

Why is KFC going up a mountain?

The company framed the move as a deliberate provocation, designed to place the brand where consumers do not expect it. KFC said its alpine debut was intended to surprise people and reach places where nobody would expect to find the chain.

"We really wanted this project because it perfectly represents how we envision KFC's evolution: continuing to surprise, reaching places where no one would expect to find us, and doing so without sacrificing what makes us unique," Marzia Farè, chief marketing officer of KFC Italy, told Voci di Cortina.

For franchise operators and brand managers, the logic is straightforward: saturation in conventional formats pushes chains into unconventional real estate. A ski resort works as advertising as much as a revenue line — the same way a flagship in a landmark location buys attention a suburban drive-through cannot.

Who is threatening legal action?

Alberico Zardini, a majority shareholder in Faloria Spa, the company that manages the infrastructure on Mount Faloria, has put the project's host on notice. He wrote to Faloria's management warning that he would pursue legal action if the KFC project proceeds.

He said that if Faloria Spa does not reverse course, he would "denounce the board of directors and the director."

"The mere idea is disgraceful," Zardini told Il Messaggero. "It's absurd and shameful to imagine a fast-food joint in the most beautiful spot in Cortina. Do the people of Cortina not realize what we're risking here?"

Zardini's objection rests on positioning as much as on fried chicken itself. He pointed to the plans for the Faloria refuge, where the third floor is slated to hold a luxury restaurant — and where the ground floor would sell buckets of chicken.

"On the third floor of the refuge, the construction of a luxury restaurant is planned. And what do we do underneath? Do we sell fried chicken? I am one hundred percent against it. And I will not stand still," Zardini said.

What does the dispute change for operators?

The confrontation tests how far a mass-market brand can stretch into premium physical spaces before local stakeholders push back. Faloria Spa now faces a shareholder with majority standing and a stated willingness to escalate to formal complaints against its board — a governance problem that arrives weeks before the scheduled December 5 opening.

For KFC, the stakes are reputational rather than financial: two mountain outlets will not move the chain's numbers, but the openings were designed to generate exactly the attention they are now receiving. The question Zardini raises — whether a destination built on exclusivity can host a global fast-food brand without eroding what makes it valuable — is the one every operator eyeing premium locations will have to answer.

Cortina d'Ampezzo, host of the 2026 Winter Olympics alpine events, has built its identity on exactly the kind of prestige Zardini says a KFC would undercut. The dispute puts a December deadline on that argument.