Popeyes chicken near me Popeyes Chicken we all know them there's thousands of them all across the United States one of the biggest fast-food chains out there and really among the biggest when it comes to Fried Chicken they were sold for 1.8 billion dollars in 2017 proving that they're valuable and I'd say doing pretty well.
The beginning of Popeyes chicken
But there was a time when things were looking bad and I know over the past 10 years or so they've improved a lot and brought back their brand but that's not what I'm talking about I'd argue that this is even bigger in 1989 when they had recently grown to the third largest sort of the second largest fried chicken chain in the US that'll make sense later they filed for bankruptcy and immediately after were taken away from their founder I would identify this as the shakiest period for Popeyes anything could have happened so that's what I want to talk about today their rise to that point their fall from it and then their rise again after.
Now the founder that I mentioned was none other than al Copeland oh wait until you hear about this guy he grew up in the very poor areas of New Orleans his father left just after he was born his mother received welfare from the government to support her three kids when he was 16 years old he dropped out of high school to join the workforce fortunate for him his older brother had become part owner of this local doughnut chain called tasty doughnuts.
He worked at one of those for a couple years until he turned 18 sold his car and used the money to open his own tasty doughnuts as a franchisee location from what I can tell he did a good job running it the whole thing was a success but al Copeland was always looking for bigger and better opportunities.
Popeyes chicken near me and KFC
When he was four years into operating that tasty doughnuts franchise in 1966 KFC opened their first New Orleans restaurant right away it caught Al's attention he started examining the business comparing it to his own and ended up learning that KFC was open for fewer hours but was pulling in four times more money given those numbers I'm sure he started thinking what we're all thinking right now evidently if the donut business is for suckers because Fried Chicken is where you make the real money.
He then spent some time planning things out coming up with a few recipes making some risky life decisions and 1971 finally opened a fried chicken restaurant called chicken on the run their slogan was so fast you get your chicken before you get your change which isn't bad but it wasn't enough it did not do well expenses totaled two thousand dollars every week and after months of business sales were still only about 1100 meaning if he couldn't find a way to quickly double his sales he was in some serious trouble his plan was to shut down for a little bit and make some meaningful changes, one of those was fiddling with the recipe to make it spicier giving it that Cajun flavor that we know them for today in my opinion this was one of the best decisions they ever could have made it was just impossible to compete with KFC at their own game so this was a perfect way to make themselves a little bit different while appealing to the local Louisiana customers and giving them sort of a hometown identity.
Popeyes chicken and the new name
KFC heritage was associated with Kentucky and now they were associated with Louisiana the other one was changing the name to Popeyes mighty good Fried Chicken if you're wondering where that name came from I'm guessing that he just liked the way it sounded he claims that there's reasons behind it but I don't really understand them remember this.
Was 1972 the Best Picture winner for that year was William Friedkin's the French Connection it starred Gene Hackman as Detective Popeye Doyle he claims to have named the restaurant after this character and I know these two used the cartoon sailor and their ad campaigns for 35 years but that came later, no I don't see any association with the movie or the character beyond the name it's not like there's a famous fried chicken scene in it also this is confusing too he chose not to use an apostrophe in the name which I believe is poor grammar when he was asked about it he joked and said that he was too poor to afford one at the time at which yeah it's funny but what is he talking about? I theorize that he saw the movie like the sound of the name thought it looked better with no apostrophe.
Here we are so he reopened with the new name the new cajun style recipe service a few other minor changes that proved to be effective in his third week he made $2,100 exceeding his 2,000 in expenses meaning at Popeye's mighty good fried chicken was now turning a profit after its first year spicy their sales were up to 5,000 a week and they were using that money to expand the business by opening new location in the New Orleans area by 1977 there were 50 of them all owned by the company culinary and that's when they started franchising locations as a way to speed up the expansion year after that there were a hundred and twenty-five of them located all over the country by now they changed their name to Popeyes famous fried chicken they had started that famous love that chicken campaign and they were up to millions in annual sales which means they already resembled the restaurant that we know today and we're just working on opening more of them throughout the 1980s that's exactly what they did in the ways that you would expect adding new menu items such as the 39 cent mini cinnamon chicken sandwich called little chickadees using national ad campaigns to promote them and putting the money that they made back into the business it created franchising deals that promoted people to open multiple locations at the same time by 1985 there were 500 of them and Al Copeland Eadie made a lot of money.
I want to take a second to talk a little bit more about this guy because I feel this personality can help you understand some major decisions he made involving the decline of the company plus it's just entertaining there's one word that I think just says it all al Copeland was extravagant every definition just fits him perfectly exceeding the limits of reason or necessity extremely or unreasonably high in price spending much more than necessary there's countless examples to support this but I'll just mention one his Christmas lights for over 30 years straight basically from the time he first had money until his death in 2008 he would cover one of his homes in this ridiculous Christmas display.
I'm talking about over a million lights with these huge little animals and snowmen it became a tradition down in New Orleans where everyone would drive out to see them which caused major traffic jams and eventually the neighbors would sue him over it and feel bad for the neighbors other than that I have nothing against it but you have to admit it's extravagant now let me try to set the scene as far as the fried chicken industry in the 1980s KFC it was just far ahead at number one and not even applicable here followed by churches at number two who does use the apostrophe by the way just sayin and then Popeyes at number three churches was going through some issues they kept going through different management teams it led to a bunch of failed menu items other things the point is their sales were going down and it just didn't look promising so despite having about twice as many locations as Popeyes their sales were only a little higher making the two fairly similar in 1988 out of nowhere al Copeland offered 290 million dollars to buy churches in a hostile takeover attempt. Churches speculated that the attempt was motivated by information provided by former executives that were now working at Popeyes there was a lawsuit from it and the whole thing was just a mess but then just months later they agreed to merge together at the time churches was owned by the public on the stock apple market so al Copeland agreed to buy over 30 million customer shares for $11 each a totaling 330 million dollars all of that only gave him 86.5% of the company for the rest of it he gave them stock in the newly created combined company valuing the deal at nearly 400 million dollars Ella Copeland did not have 400 million dollars authentic and I would describe this deal as extravagant to finance this whole thing they borrowed about four hundred and fifty million dollars which came with pretty hefty interest payments so think about it.
Popeyes chicken near me and Churches
Churches and Popeyes are now together but why what's the real creations motivation here it did make them bigger their new combined market share was sitting at 17 percent but then KFC it was above 50 so it didn't really do much to catch them if anything it was the first flavorful of many moves if that was even their plan nor was there any one right below them ready to take their spots so it's not like it was a defensive move it's very possible that they saw great potential in the church's restaurant chain but as I said they were on a downslope and not thought to have a great future maybe it was a well-thought-out aggressive move but given what we know about el Copeland I think it may have just been extravagant the result of it was sort of what you would expect churches continue to struggle many would argue worse than ever meanwhile they were paying over 50 million dollars a year in interest in 1989 they reported revenue of four hundred and fifteen million dollars but with everything weighing them down they ended up losing 36 million by late 1990 they can no longer afford to keep up with their debt payments they spent the next few months trying to restructure things and delay them but it was unavoidable in April of 1991 they filed for bankruptcy I think anyone would tell you that getting involved with churches profiles just killed them I don't like to pass judgment like this but they went deep into debt to buy a struggling competitor I don't even know what to say here the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was their main creditor contact that's who Copeland went to to fund the acquisition so the Bankruptcy Court ordered that they would receive ownership of just about everything once they received Popeye's and churches they established a new parent company called AFC which stands for America's favorite chicken company it's another seether but there was some good news for ELQ Oakland see in 1984 he had started a separate company to provide ingredients for Popeyes restaurants and actually transferred the rights to the recipe over there they immediately worked out this agreement where he would receive 3.1 million dollars every year in exchange for letting them use that famous quick recipe that went on until 2014 when they finally just bought the rights to it so much has happened with AFC featuring since they were created through this whole ordeal so for now let me just go through some of the highlights in the early 1990s they hired this guy Frank Bellotti to turn around the company and he had already proven himself in spearheading one of Arby's many many turnarounds a few years earlier the plan included remodeling a bunch of restaurants separating the two chains as much as possible while both remaining under their control expanding churches into Canada and just doing what they could to put in care and strengthen the brand's once these two were doing better they set their focus on adding new brands to the business specifically ones that were attractive for franchising their plan was to be this franchising giant by promoting it I guess what you would call cross franchising between different chains like say I already own a Popeyes franchise and I'm looking for something new I could buy a Cinnabon franchise without much trouble because it's from the people that I've already been working with that idea came crashing down in 2003 when they had this accounting issue connected to Arthur Andersen it meant that they had to restate their results which is never good there was an SEC investigation shareholder lawsuit it revealed lower profits than the public was previously led to believe the combination of everything led to a fc selling off all these other chains so they can focus solely on Popeyes the money that they made from those sales helped them get through the scandal as far as settling lawsuits among other things and it allowed them to further invest in Popeyes in 2014 AFC actually changed their name to Popeye's Louisiana kitchen further promoting that hometown identity and finally back where we started in 2017 the people who owned Burger King restaurant brands bought the entire company for 1.8 billion dollars let me know in the comments what do you think of all this I know I started going way too fast at the end there but there's just so much here I kept getting pulled in different directions so I figured for today I'll keep it at a high level and then you can let me know which aspects you'd like to hear more about in the future AFC's mission to become a franchising giant their accounting issues with Arthur Andersen may be their more recent comeback following the divestments or her involvement with Burger King.
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