Flavor Flav chickens out in Iowa

The restaurant business has beckoned reality TV star and former Public Enemy rapper Flavor Flav, who grew up in Roosevelt and whose parents reportedly ran a restaurant in Freeport called the Soul Diner.

On Monday he opened a restaurant -- Flav's Fried Chicken -- in Clinton, Iowa. He hopes the single restaurant will someday expand to become a franchise chain to rival KFC (he'll call it FFC), the rapper told the small-town newspaper, the Clinton Herald.

Of course, he wore his trademark big clock necklace to the grand opening.

"I just want to bring something good to your neighborhood," Flav said to the crowd during the ribbon cutting, the report said. Clinton is a few hours west of Chicago. "Plus, I'm trying to start a franchise, so this is the beginning of it."

In Clinton, with a KFC restaurant next door to his new restaurant, Flav said: "I'm not scared to go against the colonel taste-wise. Business-wise, he's got me, because he's been here longer. But I'm about to catch up to the colonel."

Flav, whose real name is William Drayton Jr., has said in an Entertainment Weekly interview that he attended culinary school and his parents operated the Soul Diner in Freeport.