On this day in 1972 a little fried chicken spot popped up in Arabi, Louisiana. It was called Chicken on the Run, and failed almost immediately...but it’s redemption story as Popeyes is epic.
Al Copeland knew Louisiana had better fried chicken than Kentucky, yet KFC and their Colonel Sanders dominated the fast fried bird market. The Colonel defeated Copeland’s Chicken on the Run in about 4 months of operation, but Copeland considered it a lost battle rather than an ended war. He swiftly reopened as “Popeyes Mighty Good Chicken,” advertising heavily that they had SPICY chicken, not just “kid stuff.” Miraculously, the rebranding worked, and by 1976 Copeland was franchising his grub as “Popeyes FAMOUS Fried Chicken.” He sold NOLA as much as chicken, using French Quarter imagery in ads and getting Dr. John to sing the “love that chicken from Popeyes” jingle. Copeland funded giant Mardi Gras balls in the Superdome and boat races on Lake Ponchartrain. In 1982 Popeyes even printed 100,000 special doubloons for parades, each redeemable for 2 pieces of fried chicken.
Despite splashy advertising and over 500 locations, by the early 1980s Popeyes was losing the battle to KFC. Which is when Copeland dropped a bomb—or, more specifically, a biscuit.
As everyone in 2021 knows, the biscuits were a hit. Dense, crusty, and 1000% tastier than the meh “dinner rolls” which preceded them, biscuits soon made up 25% of the chain’s total sales. They became one of the most successful menu additions in the entirety of fast food history.
Unfortunately the success of the biscuit drove Copeland to make a brash, ill-fated move: purchasing major competitor Church’s in 1989. The albatross of Church’s ended up bankrupting Popeyes, leading to the creation of America's Favorite Chicken Company, Inc. This was a “parent company” dreamed up in court by Popeyes creditors to help everyone make their money back. And it mostly worked.
The Popeyes brand survived and sold for an estimated 1.8 BILLION dollars in 2017. Over 2000 restaurant locations exist, including one in China, with plans to expand to Mexico, India, and Nepal in the coming years.
The company continues to piss on literally everything Chik-fil-a does, and doesn’t invest any of its money in making life harder for the LGBTQ community, making it extra beloved to New Orleanians.