RIP, Al Copeland

2 pices, all white, spicy, with cole slaw and a small onion rings from Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken.

I did this week's Feature Photo on CitiesOfTheDead (dot net) on the Copeland Family tomb, since that's where he'll be buried next Monday.  While that was more about Metairie Cemetery than Copeland and his food, it's appropriate we talk about fried chicken to honor his memory.

Any memory of how New Orleanians ate fried chicken before the mid-1970s has been relegated to a single line in Benny Grunch's song, "Ain't Dere No More," when he says, "Don't cook tonight, call Chicken Delight."  Chicken Delight was a local chain that delivered fried chicken by the bucket.  Other than  Chicken Delight, a local's choices for fried chicken were twofold:  cook it yourself, or go out to a full-service restaurant. 

Cooking dinner was something a New Orleans housewife wasn't afraid of, mind you, but proper fried chicken meant deep-frying, and that's more of a pain than many other things in the Creole cook's repertoire. That meant you were more likely to get  baked or  stewed chicken at home, and fried chicken only when you went out. 

Many restaurants did (and some still do) great fried chicken, such as Buster Holmes', Dooky Chase, Maylie's, and a number of other neighborhood places.  The one place where fried chicken was a specialty, though, was Jim's, on S. Carrollton Ave.  If the family was going to Jim's, they were going for fried chicken.

All that changed in the mid-1970s.  The Golden Arches and Burger King had already infiltrated the eating habits of New Orleanians, and the Colonel was not too far behind.  While the rest of the country fell for Kentucky Fried Chicken's recipe, it didn't strike a resounding chord with locals.  When Copeland opened his first chicken place in Arabi in 1971, there was only one KFC, and that was out in the 'burbs. 

Copeland struggled at first to find a market for his product, but when he switched from cooking mild chicken to his now-famous spicy recipe, sales took off.  I don't know the exact pattern of growth of the restaurants when he expanded out past Arabi in 1977, but I do remember that the store on Elysian Fields and N. Robertson was one of the first.  We'd make the trek down there from UNO regularly, until they finally opened a Popeyes closer to the university.  Popeye's buried the Colonel, to the point where there are only nine KFCs in Orleans and Jefferson parishes, three on the west bank, three on the east bank side of the city, two in Kenner, and only one in Metairie.  Of those locations, several are these combo stores that double as Taco Bells and KFCs.  Popeyes, on the other hand, is everywhere.

Popeyes re-defined the fast food experience in New Orleans.  While people in other cities were eating Whoppers and Big Macs, Yats were digging into 2-piece and 3-piece spicy chicken dinners, featuring side items such as fries, cole slaw, onion rings, and dirty rice. The chicken was spicy, to the point where sometimes you'd peel back the breading and skin and the meat on a breast piece would be red.  Not the red you see when chicken is undercooked, but the red of cayenne pepper.  Yeahyourite.

Copeland wasn't just about the chicken recipe, though.  He surrounded himself with good people who grew the business.  His marketing was excellent.  The best marketing decision Popeyes ever made was to hire Mac Rebennack to sing a jingle for commercials.  New Orleanians love Dr. John as much as they "love dat chicken from Popeyes."

After a few years, Copeland took a bold step by offering red beans and rice as a side order as well.  This dish was a resounding success, and remains one of the most popular menu items. 

New Orleans' religious traditions also became part of Popeyes, when the stores were re-tooled to fry up seafood as well as chicken.  The menu expanded to include fried shrimp, catfish, and crawfish.  The chain made a brief foray into the breakfast market, selling its tasty biscuits as the backbone of the "Cajun Eye-Popper," a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit sandwich so full of cholesterol that, would be a death sentence to the frequent eater.  To my knowledge, the only place that still sells it is Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta. 

All that chicken, shrimp, and catfish made Copeland his fortune.  While I didn't know Copeland personally, we've lived near his Metairie home long enough to hear and see all the controversies.  From the massive light display at Christmastime, and the subsequent lawsuit from an unhappy neighbor to his request of the ACOE for permission to build a helipad on the levee behind his home on Transcontinental Blvd. and the lake, Copeland was always in the news. 

His 1987 attempt to corner the chicken business by acquiring Church's Fried Chicken via the use of "junk" bonds was a disaster of a magnitude that only Copeland could engineer.  He lost control of Popeyes to the consortium of banks that held the junk paper he used for financing.  No fool, Copeland, though, his contract with Popeyes stipulated that he personally owned the chicken recipe, and another Copeland holding, Diversified Foods, made the seasoning and breading mixes for all Popeyes stores.  So, personally, he emerged from the corporate bankruptcy in a fairly solid position.

That's when Copeland put his focus on his signature restaurant chain bearing his last name.  He was able to do something nobody had accomplished up to that point, franchise New Orleans food.  Copeland's restaurants began to open in other cities, under his watchful eye.  New Orleanians will deride the quality and decor of the local Copeland's restaurants, but they're an oasis of civilization in the chain-infested exurbs of Alpharetta, GA or Plano, TX.

So, Bright Blessings attend you, Mr. Copeland.  May Summerland be filled with fast boats, helicopters, and big motorcycles.