Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits
Encyclopedia
Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits (sometimes named Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen or Popeyes Chicken & Seafood; often referred to as just Popeyes) is a chain of fried chicken
fast food
restaurants, owned since 1993 by the Sandy Springs, Georgia
-based AFC Enterprises
, which was originally America's Favorite Chicken Company. According to a company press release dated June 29, 2007, Popeyes is the second-largest "quick-service chicken restaurant group, measured by number of units", with more than 1,800 restaurants in more than 40 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico
and over 21 countries worldwide including Turkey
, Bahrain
, China
, Hong Kong
, Iraq
, Indonesia
, Jordan
, Kuwait
, United Arab Emirates
, Japan
, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia
, South Korea
, Singapore
, Canada
, Jamaica
, Guyana
, Mexico
, Trinidad
, Honduras
, Vietnam
, Panama
, and Costa Rica
. About thirty locations are company-owned, the rest franchised
.
Popeyes Mighty Good Fried Chicken first opened in Arabi, Louisiana
, a suburb of New Orleans
in St. Bernard Parish, in 1972 as "Chicken on the Run", owned by Al Copeland
. As the company's official history states, they sold "traditional mild fried chicken [but] business was slow, and the chicken team realized they'd have to sell a spicier alternative to their standard chicken recipe if they wanted to impress flavor-seeking New Orleanians.
Copeland started franchising his restaurant in 1976, beginning in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
and over the next ten years added approximately five hundred outlets. B.P. Newman
of Laredo
, Texas
, acquired various franchises in Texas and surrounding states. Two hundred additional locations were added during a period of slower expansion. In 1989, Popeyes, then the third-largest chicken chain, merged with Church's Chicken
, the second largest, though parent company AFC Enterprises operated the two chains separately. On December 29, 2004, AFC sold Church's to Arcapita
, formerly Crescent Capital Investments, retaining Popeyes.
On October 30, 2006, AFC announced that Popeyes planned to introduce a trans fat
-free biscuit as well as french fries containing one gram of trans fat by year-end.
Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the movie The French Connection
and not the comic character Popeye the Sailor
. Copeland would claim facetiously that he was "too poor" to afford an apostrophe
. The chain later acquired rights to use Popeye the Sailor for marketing. The company's early brand became deeply tied to the comic character with its sponsorship of the "Popeye & Pals" children's show in New Orleans, and the character appeared on items from packaging to racing boats.
. Most combo meals come with a side order
, drink, and a biscuit
.
and R&B musician Dr. John
. The original and other older locations had a black lava rock exterior with a red shingled roof. Most older locations have covered the rock exterior to conform with the current yellow stucco appearance.
(1928–2008), originally from Alexandria
, Louisiana
, who held a franchise in the Washington, D.C.
, area from 1979-2007. Some international franchises, such as the ones located in Germany, Italy and Japan, are only located on U.S. military installations and are generally not accessible to the local civilian public.
Fried chicken
Fried chicken is a dish consisting of chicken pieces usually from broiler chickens which have been floured or battered and then pan fried, deep fried, or pressure fried. The breading adds a crisp coating or crust to the exterior...
fast food
Fast food
Fast food is the term given to food that can be prepared and served very quickly. While any meal with low preparation time can be considered to be fast food, typically the term refers to food sold in a restaurant or store with preheated or precooked ingredients, and served to the customer in a...
restaurants, owned since 1993 by the Sandy Springs, Georgia
Sandy Springs, Georgia
Sandy Springs is a city in north Georgia, United States. It is a northern suburb of Atlanta. With a 2010 population of 93,853, Sandy Springs is the sixth-largest city in the state and the second-largest city in Metro Atlanta. Sandy Springs is located in north Fulton County, Georgia, just south of...
-based AFC Enterprises
AFC Enterprises
AFC Enterprises is the Sandy Springs, Georgia-headquartered company that owns Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits. AFC Enterprises is a publicly traded company....
, which was originally America's Favorite Chicken Company. According to a company press release dated June 29, 2007, Popeyes is the second-largest "quick-service chicken restaurant group, measured by number of units", with more than 1,800 restaurants in more than 40 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
and over 21 countries worldwide including Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
, United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
, Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, and Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. About thirty locations are company-owned, the rest franchised
Franchising
Franchising is the practice of using another firm's successful business model. The word 'franchise' is of anglo-French derivation - from franc- meaning free, and is used both as a noun and as a verb....
.
History
Arabi, Louisiana
Arabi is a census-designated place in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana on the East Bank of the Mississippi River, between the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana and Chalmette within the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area...
, a suburb of New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
in St. Bernard Parish, in 1972 as "Chicken on the Run", owned by Al Copeland
Al Copeland
Alvin Charles "Al" Copeland was an American entrepreneur who created the Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits fast food chain. He was also a successful restaurateur who created many successful upscale restaurants.-Personal life:...
. As the company's official history states, they sold "traditional mild fried chicken [but] business was slow, and the chicken team realized they'd have to sell a spicier alternative to their standard chicken recipe if they wanted to impress flavor-seeking New Orleanians.
Copeland started franchising his restaurant in 1976, beginning in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South...
and over the next ten years added approximately five hundred outlets. B.P. Newman
B.P. Newman
B.P. Newman was a business entrepreneur, developer, civic leader, and philanthropist in Laredo, Texas. Newman Elementary School in Laredo is named for him.-Early years:...
of Laredo
Laredo, Texas
Laredo is the county seat of Webb County, Texas, United States, located on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. According to the 2010 census, the city population was 236,091 making it the 3rd largest on the United States-Mexican border,...
, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, acquired various franchises in Texas and surrounding states. Two hundred additional locations were added during a period of slower expansion. In 1989, Popeyes, then the third-largest chicken chain, merged with Church's Chicken
Church's Chicken
Church's Chicken is a US-based chain of fast food restaurants specializing in fried chicken, also trading outside North America as Texas Chicken. The chain was founded as Church's Fried Chicken To Go by George W. Church, Sr., on April 17, 1952, in San Antonio, across the street from The Alamo...
, the second largest, though parent company AFC Enterprises operated the two chains separately. On December 29, 2004, AFC sold Church's to Arcapita
Arcapita
Arcapita Inc. is a Delaware-incorporated holding and real estate company, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia....
, formerly Crescent Capital Investments, retaining Popeyes.
On October 30, 2006, AFC announced that Popeyes planned to introduce a trans fat
Trans fat
Trans fat is the common name for unsaturated fat with trans-isomer fatty acid. Because the term refers to the configuration of a double carbon-carbon bond, trans fats are sometimes monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, but never saturated....
-free biscuit as well as french fries containing one gram of trans fat by year-end.
Name
Copeland claimed he named the stores after the fictional detectiveDetective
A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in the movie The French Connection
The French Connection (film)
This article is about the 1971 film. For the British fashion label, see French Connection .The French Connection is a 1971 American crime film directed by William Friedkin. The film was adapted and fictionalized by Ernest Tidyman from the non-fiction book by Robin Moore...
and not the comic character Popeye the Sailor
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...
. Copeland would claim facetiously that he was "too poor" to afford an apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
. The chain later acquired rights to use Popeye the Sailor for marketing. The company's early brand became deeply tied to the comic character with its sponsorship of the "Popeye & Pals" children's show in New Orleans, and the character appeared on items from packaging to racing boats.
Products
Popeyes serves chicken products in mild and spicy flavors and offers sides such as Cajun fries, mashed potatoes with Cajun-style gravy, and Cajun riceDirty rice
Dirty rice is a traditional Cajun dish made from white rice cooked with small pieces of chicken liver or giblets, which give it a dark color and a mild but distinctive flavor. Similar to a pilaf, it also includes green bell pepper, celery and onion . Parsley and/or chopped green onions are common...
. Most combo meals come with a side order
Side Order
Side Order is a 2009 Christian-Christmas film by Oakwood Media Productions, a ministry of Oakwood Baptist Church in Chickamauga, Georgia. The film is Oakwood Baptist Church's third feature film production...
, drink, and a biscuit
Biscuit (bread)
A biscuit in the United States, and widely used in popular American English, is a small bread made with baking powder or baking soda as a chemical leavening agent rather than yeast....
.
Style and marketing
The restaurants have a distinctive red-and-yellow color scheme. TV and radio ads often use New Orleans-style music, along with the trademark Love That Chicken jingle sung by New Orleans funkFunk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
and R&B musician Dr. John
Dr. John
Malcolm John "Mac" Rebennack, Jr. , better known by the stage name Dr. John , is an American singer-songwriter, pianist and guitarist, whose music combines blues, pop, jazz as well as Zydeco, boogie woogie and rock and roll.Active as a session musician since the late 1950s, he came to wider...
. The original and other older locations had a black lava rock exterior with a red shingled roof. Most older locations have covered the rock exterior to conform with the current yellow stucco appearance.
Number of franchises
Popeyes maintains a "Hall of Fame" of its franchise holders. Among the inductees is Morgan W. Walker, Jr.Morgan W. Walker, Jr.
Morgan Wailes Walker, Jr. , was a prominent businessman invested in farming, cattle ranching, catfish production, restaurant management, and banking, originally from Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish and the largest city in Central Louisiana.Walker was one of six children born to Morgan W....
(1928–2008), originally from Alexandria
Alexandria, Louisiana
Alexandria is a city in and the parish seat of Rapides Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the south bank of the Red River in almost the exact geographic center of the state. It is the principal city of the Alexandria metropolitan area which encompasses all of Rapides and Grant parishes....
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, who held a franchise in the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, area from 1979-2007. Some international franchises, such as the ones located in Germany, Italy and Japan, are only located on U.S. military installations and are generally not accessible to the local civilian public.
| Year | US | Canada | Outside US & Canada | Company-owned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 1,324 | 20 | 320 | 95 |
| 2004 | 1,382 | 28 | 347 | 67 |
| 2005 | 1,427 | 28 | 315 | 56 |
| 2006 | 1,459 | 31 | 306 | 50 |
| 2007 | 1,507 | 34 | 276 | 61 |
| 2008 | 1,527 | 39 | 301 | 55 |
| 2009 | 1,539 | 42 | 325 | 37 |
| Source: Entrepreneur.com | ||||
See also
- Wimpy - An International Burger chain also connected with the Popeye the Sailor franchise.
Sources
- Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits official website
- MenuMasters 1999 Award: "Best Menu/Line Extension: Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits (with background article)