🠈  Popeyes  🠊

Popeyes

Popeyes is a restaurant chain from Louisiana that began by selling southern fried chicken with the name "Chicken on the Run."

The president of the company Alvin C. Copeland Sr. (1944-2008) decided to spice things up by serving spicy New Orleans style chicken and renamed the company after a character in the movie The French Connection named Popeye Doyle. The company has licensed the name "Popeye the Sailor" for use in some ads.

The company had opened 500 restaurants by 1985. Popeyes merged with Church's Chicken in 1989 (Church's Chicken was founded in 1952 by George W. Church, Sr in 1952 in San Antonio, Texas and was the second largest chicken chain at the time of the merger.)

Aggressive expansion took its toll and the company went bankrupt in 1991. The bankruptcy court formed a new concern called "America’s Favorite Chicken Company" (AFC).

In 1998 AFC purchased Seattle Best Coffee Company and Cinnabon expanded the brands.

AFC held an IPO in 2001 and raised $142,818,479. AFC sold the domestic side of Seattle Best Coffee Company to Starbucks in 2003. In 2004, AFC sold the Seattle Best Coffee International and Cinnabon to a subsidiary of Roark Capital called FOCUS Brands. The company sold Church's to Arcapita in 2004 as well.

Popeyes had grown to 2600 restaurants by 2017 at which point it was purchased by Restaurant Brands International. Most Popeyes restaurants are owned by franchisees.

Popeyes - Midvale, Utah

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References:

  1. Popeyes - Our Story (Drawn 10/23/2017)
  2. Wikipedia - Popeyes (Drawn 10/23/2017)

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