Chicken and Southern business empires seem practically synonymous. In the 1930s, Colonel Sanders began selling fried chicken from a roadside restaurant in Corbin, Ky. In the 1960s, Truett Cathy began selling chicken sandwiches in an Atlanta mall. Today, the food industry research firm Technomic ranks KFC No. 9 and Chick-fil-A No. 10 as the most…