Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits 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 began franchising his restaurant in 1976, beginning in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and added approximately five hundred outlets over the next ten years. 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.
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.
