Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., also known as Popeyes and formerly named Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken & Biscuits, is an American multinational chain of

fried chicken Fried chicken, also known as Southern fried chicken, is a dish consisting of chicken pieces that have been coated with seasoned flour or batter and pan-fried, deep fried, pressure fried, or air fried. The breading adds a crisp coating o ...

fast food restaurants A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typical ...

that was formed in 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana and headquartered in Miami. It is currently a subsidiary of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

-based

Restaurant Brands International Restaurant Brands International Inc. (RBI) is a Canadian-based multinational fast food holding company. It was formed in 2014 by the $12.5 billion merger between American fast food restaurant chain Burger King and Canadian coffee shop and res ...

. , Popeyes has 3,705 restaurants, which are located in more than 46 states and the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle (Washington, D.C.), Logan Circle, Jefferson Memoria ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

, and 30 countries worldwide. About 50 locations are company-owned; the vast remainder are

franchised Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television ...

History

Popeyes was formed in

Arabi, Louisiana Arabi () is a census-designated place (CDP) in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, between the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans and Chalmette within the Greater New Orleans metropolita ...

, a suburb of

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

St. Bernard Parish St. Bernard Parish (french: Paroisse de Saint-Bernard; es, Parroquia de San Bernardo) is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat and largest community is Chalmette. The parish was formed in 1807. St. Bernard Parish is part of t ...

. It first opened its doors on June 12, 1972, as "Chicken on the Run". Owner Al Copeland (1944–2008) wanted to compete with

Kentucky Fried Chicken KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (as measured by sales) after McDonald's, wit ...

, but his restaurant failed after several months. Copeland reopened the restaurant four days later as Popeyes Mighty Good Chicken. By 1975, the company had been renamed as Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken. Copeland started franchising his restaurant in 1976, beginning in Louisiana. The chain expanded to Canada in 1984, and opened its 500th restaurant in 1985. B. P. Newman of

Laredo, Texas Laredo ( ; ) is a city in and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, United States, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Laredo has the distinction of flying seven flags (the Flag of th ...

, acquired several franchises in Texas and surrounding states. Two hundred additional locations were added during a period of slower expansion. By 1990, Copeland Enterprises was in default on $391 million in debts it had taken on in its 1989 purchase of

Church's Church's is a high-end footwear manufacturer that was founded in 1873, by Thomas Church, in Northampton, England. In 1999 the company came under the control of Italian luxury fashion house Prada in a US$170 million deal. History Between the ...

, a rival fast food chain also focusing in fried chicken, and by April 1991, the company filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debto ...

protection. In October 1992, the court approved a plan by a group of Copeland's creditors that resulted in the creation of America's Favorite Chicken Company, Inc. (AFC) to serve as the new parent company for Popeyes and Church's. AFC went public in 2001 with

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

(IPO) of $142,818,479. On December 29, 2004, AFC sold Church's to

Arcapita Arcapita founded in 1997, is an asset management firm. Headquartered in Manama, Bahrain, Arcapita also operates from its offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. The firm serves a group of investors in th ...

(formerly Crescent Capital Investments) retaining Popeyes. On August 8, 2000, Popeyes announced a franchise development plan/agreement that included 35 new restaurant locations around Australia in a bid to solidify their presence within the Asia Pacific region. All were to be located in the capital city of NSW, Sydney. On June 17, 2014, Popeyes announced it had re-acquired full control of its seasonings, recipes, and other proprietary food preparation techniques from Diversified Foods & Seasonings, which remained under the control of Al Copeland and his estate after the creditor sale of Popeyes to AFC. Popeyes had continued to license the seasonings, recipes, and techniques from DF&S for a yearly 'spice royalty', before buying them outright for $43 million. DF&S remains the main supplier for Popeyes until at least 2029.

Name

Alvin C. Copeland claimed he named the stores after the fictional

detective A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...

Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle is a fictional character portrayed by actor Gene Hackman in the films '' The French Connection'' (1971) and its sequel, ''French Connection II'' (1975), and by Ed O'Neill in the 1986 television film '' Popeye Doyle'' ...

(portrayed by

Gene Hackman Eugene Allen Hackman (born January 30, 1930) is an American retired actor and former novelist. In a career that has spanned more than six decades, Hackman has won two Academy Awards, four Golden Globes, one Screen Actors Guild Award, two BAFTAs ...

) in the 1971 film '' The French Connection'',Martin, Douglas. "Al Copeland, a Restaurateur Known for Spice and Speed, Dies at 64"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', March 25, 2008 which came out a year before the chain was founded, and not the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

character

Popeye the Sailor Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar. The company's early brand became deeply tied to the cartoon star with its sponsorship of the ''Popeye & Pals'' children's show in New Orleans, and the character appeared on items from packaging to racing boats. The name is spelled "Popeyes", without the

apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one ...

commonly used by other restaurant chains such as

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hambur ...

and

Hardee's Hardee's Restaurants LLC is an American fast-food restaurant chain operated by CKE Restaurants Holdings, Inc. ("CKE") with locations primarily in the Southern and Midwestern United States. The company has evolved through several corporate ow ...

. Copeland claimed facetiously that he was "too poor" to afford an apostrophe. The chain later acquired rights to use Popeye the Sailor for marketing and used this for 35 years. In late November 2012. AFC announced the mutual termination of their licensing contract with

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editori ...

, effectively ending their association with the Popeye characters.

Acquisition by Restaurant Brands International

On February 21, 2017,

announced a deal to buy Popeyes for US$1.8 billion. On March 27, 2017, the deal closed with RBI purchasing Popeyes at $79 per share via Orange, Inc, an indirect subsidiary of RBI.

Products

Popeyes serves chicken dishes in mild and spicy flavors and offers sides such as red beans and rice, Cajun fries, mashed potatoes with Cajun-style gravy, Cajun rice, macaroni & cheese,

biscuits A biscuit is a flour-based baked and shaped food product. In most countries biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be ...

, and

coleslaw Coleslaw (from the Dutch term ''koolsla'' meaning 'cabbage salad'), also known as cole slaw, or simply as slaw, is a side dish consisting primarily of finely shredded raw cabbage with a salad dressing or condiment, commonly either vinaigrett ...

. In addition to chicken, Popeyes also serves seafood entrées such as shrimp and catfish. On October 30, 2006, AFC announced that Popeyes planned to introduce a

trans fat Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that naturally occurs in small amounts in meat and milk fat. It became widely produced as an unintentional byproduct in the industrial pr ...

-free biscuit as well as french fries containing one gram of trans fat by year-end. On November 18, 2011, AFC announced that, for the

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

holiday, Popeyes would release a Fried Turducken sandwich that would show off the first ever

Turducken Turducken is a dish consisting of a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, further stuffed into a deboned turkey. Outside of the United States and Canada, it is known as a three-bird roast. Gooducken is an English variant, replacing turkey ...

patty. On July 29, 2013, AFC began offering a special entree of fried chicken strips dipped in waffle batter, which was already a proven success in some markets. For a limited time only in 2017, Popeyes offered "Sweet and Crunchy" chicken, fried chicken tenders coated in shortbread cookie breading. In 2021, Popeyes introduced a flounder sandwich.

Chicken sandwich

Popeyes began selling a chicken sandwich in August 2019 to compete with

Chick-fil-A Chick-fil-A ( , a play on the American English pronunciation of " filet") is an American fast food restaurant chain which is the country's largest which specializes in chicken sandwiches. Headquartered in College Park, Georgia, Chick-fil-A op ...

's similar flagship sandwich. The company first launched the sandwich at Long Beach restaurant Sweet Dixie Kitchen, a locally-famous spot that had become known for reselling fried chicken that it had purchased at Popeyes. The sandwich launched nationwide to all locations in the U.S on August 12, 2019, but had some advance openings at the beginning of 2019. The marketing campaign, designed by advertising agency GSD&M started on August 12, 2019, with a tweet on Popeyes' Twitter feed. The new sandwich went viral immediately and prompted responses from nearly every fast food chain including

, Chick-Fil-A, and

Wendy's Wendy's is an American international fast food restaurant chain founded by Dave Thomas (1932–2002) on November 15, 1969, in Columbus, Ohio. Its headquarters moved to Dublin, Ohio, on January 29, 2006. As of December 31, 2018, Wendy's was ...

. Popeyes reported a 103% increase in traffic in the days following the launch of the sandwich. The sandwich helped Popeyes gather an estimated $23 million in free publicity since its launch. Popeyes stores routinely sold out of the sandwich and experienced long lines, and a man outside of a Maryland Popeye's chain was stabbed to death during a dispute over a cutting in line for a chicken sandwich. Locations across the US were supposed to have enough materials to last them until the end of September. Instead, restaurants were almost entirely sold out after less than two weeks. On August 27, approximately two weeks after the launch, Popeyes announced that it had officially sold out of the chicken sandwich across the country. One person in Tennessee sued Popeyes, claiming that his inability to get the sandwich has caused him to be "hustled out of money", making Popeyes guilty of "false advertising" along with "deceptive business practices". On October 28, 2019, Popeyes announced that the chicken sandwich would return to locations across the US on November 3. Popeyes chicken sandwich is made of buttermilk-battered white meat on a brioche bun along with pickles and mayonnaise or spicy Cajun spread. A single sandwich contains 700 calories, 42 grams of fat, 14 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 trans fat, 1443 milligrams of sodium, and 28 net grams of protein. In September 2020, Popeyes' chicken sandwich went on sale in Canada.

Style and marketing

The restaurants' exteriors have a distinctive orange and white color scheme. The original 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 orange stucco appearance. During the 1970s and 1980s, the company occasionally licensed characters from the

Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mi ...

and R&B musician

Dr. John Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019), better known by his stage name Dr. John, was an American singer and songwriter. His music encompassed New Orleans blues, jazz, funk, and R&B. Active as a session musician from ...

. In 2009, Popeyes introduced "Annie the Chicken Queen", a fictitious, upbeat,

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

Popeyes chef played by actress Deidrie Henry. The character is meant to be "honest, vibrant, youthful and authentic" according to Dick Lynch, Popeyes Chief Marketing Officer. "Everyone has a relative or a good friend who will give it to them straight, and that's what the Annie is all about", Lynch said. Popeyes has sponsored various

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

drivers since 2000. That year,

NASCAR Busch Series The NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS) is a stock car racing series organized by NASCAR. It is promoted as NASCAR's second-tier circuit to the organization's top level Cup Series. NXS events are frequently held as a support race on the day prior to ...

driver

Rich Bickle Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling **Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...

was sponsored by the company for six races, while

Mark McFarland Mark M. McFarland (born February 1, 1978) is a former NASCAR driver who works for Kyle Busch Motorsports as the crew chief for their No. 18 car in the ARCA Menards Series and ARCA Menards Series East. In 2021, he won championships in both series ...

received a one-race deal in the same series the following season. In March 2018, Tyler Matthews made his

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a pickup truck racing series owned and operated by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and is the only series in NASCAR to race production pickup truck based stock cars. The series is one of ...

debut in the No. 99 Popeyes truck at

Martinsville Speedway Martinsville Speedway is a NASCAR-owned stock car racing short track in Ridgeway, Virginia, just south of Martinsville. At in length, it is the shortest track in the NASCAR Cup Series. The track was also one of the first paved oval tracks in ...

, and the company also sponsored

Brennan Poole Brennan Cole Poole (born April 11, 1991) is an American professional stock car racing driver, engineer, consultant, driver coach, spotter, and crew chief. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 6 Chevrolet Camaro f ...

and

Vizion Motorsports Vizion Motorsports (formerly NextGen Motorsports) was an American professional stock car racing team that last competed in the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series. In the Truck Series, the team currently fielded a ...

for that year's Truck Series season finale at

Homestead–Miami Speedway Homestead–Miami Speedway is a motor racing track located in Homestead, Florida. The track, which has several configurations, has promoted several series of racing, including NASCAR, the IndyCar Series, the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship s ...

. Popeyes has made use of various slogans in

television advertisements A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

, most notably "Love that chicken from Popeyes".

Number of franchises

Popeyes maintains a "Hall of Fame" of its franchise holders. Some international franchises, such as the ones located in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, are located only on U.S. military installations and are generally not accessible to the local civilian public. Popeyes arrived in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

in 2001 but left in 2007 due to a problem with the franchisor; it later returned with a new deal with Kuya J Group in 2018 and opened its first branch in

Pasig Pasig, officially the City of Pasig ( fil, Lungsod ng Pasig), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 803,159 people. It is located along the ...

on May 19, 2019. Popeyes opened the first store in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

on May 15, 2020 and in March 2021, it announced plans to open stores in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

, with the first restaurant in the latter country, locating at

Westfield Stratford City Westfield Stratford City is a shopping centre in Stratford, east London, which opened on 13 September 2011. With a total retail floor area of , it is the largest urban shopping centre in the UK by land area and the 4th-largest shopping cen ...

opening on November 20, 2021. Restaurant Brands International signed a master franchise and development agreement with Indian company

Jubilant FoodWorks Jubilant FoodWorks Limited is an Indian food service company based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh which holds the master franchise for Domino's Pizza in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, for Popeyes in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, and ...

on March 24, 2021, to operate Popeyes restaurants in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

and

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

. The first Popeyes restaurant in

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

opened in

Bambalapitiya Bambalapitiya is a southern coastal neighbourhood of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The area also known as Colombo 4, spans about along Galle Road. The western boundary of the suburb is the Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the ...

, Sri Lanka on February 25th 2021. In December 2020, Popeyes announced that it will be closing all locations in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, due to poor sales partially attributed to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In October 2021, Popeyes signed an agreement with Romanian company Sterling Cruise to open 90 restaurants in

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

in the next 10 years, the first one opened on April 9, 2022. Popeyes opened the first store in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

on December 23, 2022.

References

External links

* * * * {{Authority control Companies based in Miami American companies established in 1972 Restaurants established in 1972 American subsidiaries of foreign companies Fast-food chains of the United States Chicken chains of the United States Fast-food franchises Fast-food poultry restaurants Restaurant Brands International 1972 establishments in Louisiana 2017 mergers and acquisitions Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Fried chicken Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991