[Updated] KFC changes closing time to 4 pm after social media outrage

After social media backlash, KFC updated its closing time on Tuesday from 6 pm to 4 pm, with deliveries and online ordering to stop at 3 pm.

The update was posted to KFC's official social media account after Newsday highlighted the outrage expressed in the comments under the initial release at 11.30 am on Tuesday. The popular fast food restaurant first announced that it would close all its branches at 6pm owing to the impending storm.

Other Prestige Holdings Ltd brands, including Subway, Pizza Hut, Starbucks and TGI Fridays, will also close at 4 pm.

An announcement on Tuesday by the Met Office said the storm was expected to make landfall at 6 pm, two hours earlier than initially predicted.

Many comments on KFC's post expressed outrage, saying staff needed time to get home safely and that transport might be hard to find.

Other comments criticised the Prestige Holdings administration, the parent company of the international franchise, asserting that all managers were at home safely.

Posts asking KFC to send staff home earlier exceeded 200 within hours of the announcement on Facebook.

Comments on Instagram were more friendly, with some requesting a "Hurricane Bucket" or other "storm specials."