Louisiana Legends; Al Copeland

Funding for the production of Louisiana Legends is provided in part by the Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by Union National Life Insurance, a Louisiana company serving Louisiana and the South since 1926. (music)

If you love that chicken from Popeye's, you're gonna be fascinated with our guest on Louisiana Legends. He's Al Copeland from New Orleans, who started the thing and started it from, uh, nothing really just with, uh, an idea and, uh uh uh, a lot of, uh, courage. I think his story will be fascinating and, even more important, I hope that it will be inspiring to, uh-, folks out there who want to get started in their lives with something. Al, welcome to Louisiana Legends. You're a, uh, New Orleanian, went to Warren Easton High School. At Warren Easton, did Al Copeland exhibit any qualities that, uh, could have given a clue to what you've done with your life? I doubt it very seriously. Were you a playboy? Were you an athlete? What kind of a high school student? I'm looking for clues to Al Copeland. More or less a playboy. Playboy. Yeah.

What, uh, what were your plans? What're your dreams? What did you want to do? Well, I just, I did have in the back of my mind and I wanted to figure out a way to do something so that I wouldn't be making $50 a week all my life, you know. And, uh, I wanted to find a way to get into business and get started and try to find a way to be successful. That was my main objective and it was always in my mind, you know. But in high school, you weren't what would be called an achiever, huh? Nothing special. Nah, I really wasn't. I was, I was a reasonably good athlete but I didn't go out for anything, you know. What, uh, what'd you do after high school? Well, uh first, the first job I had was, uh, I went to work for Schwegmann's, the supermarket on Airline Highway. And uh, I worked, uh, behind the, uh, snack bar, and I guess I stayed there about a year and a half. And then after that I went to work for, uh, Gerber's Baby Food. I stayed with them

for about a year, and uh, after that I left Gerber's. No, I stayed with Gerber's for about another year, come to think about it and I went to work for my brother in a doughnut business. Started a chain doughnut shop. Here's where the story gets interesting. You're working then in a doughnut shop. Yeah. And uh, by day you're selling doughnuts, but at night Al Copeland is doing something a little different. He's trying something out, isn't he? Yeah, well, that came a few years later. But, but, initially we, uh, started in the doughnut business with my brother, and I, and uh, and he had a company, Tasty Doughnuts. He, uh, started it and created it. He had about four or five stores at the time, and uh, I worked with him for about uh, I guess a year, year and a half, and I'd worked for Gerber's as well. I was trying to save enough money to be able to go into the doughnut business myself. And uh, uh, I guess it took me a couple of years. But working two jobs and I put together enough money to get started and I hired a carpenter for $10

a day or an hour or whatever it was back then. I think it was a day and uh, got a hold of a hammer and some saws and found a location and we put together the first doughnut shop. And uh, then I started in the first doughnut shop and it hit off as a success. It was a success. Yeah. Yeah. How much of success is luck and how much of it is sweat, brains and pushing? I don't think a tremendous amount of it is luck. I, I think there is some luck involved in it if you want to call it that. But I think people make their own luck. I think, uh, you know, you just can't sit back and say, "Well, that guy's lucky and that's why he does it." Uh, 'cause it'll never happen to you. You gotta go out and try. Uh, so how did you get interested in fried chicken? Well, that came later. I guess I was in the doughnut business for about, uh, two or three years on my own, and I had tried other businesses 'cause I was gonna try to, uh, develop some sort of a concept and things. And nothing seemed to work and um, um. Were you discouraged? No.

No. I knew I wanted to be in something. And 'bout that time a chicken operation, a national chicken operation came into town, and it really got me a little aggravated because we were in a 24-hour-a-day business and we had to work, uh, shifts from midnight all the way through, you know. And it was a little aggravating because they'd come in at 8 o'clock in the morning and open their stores for 10 o'clock and they'd close at 8 o'clock at night and they'd do more volume than I did and make more money than I did. And I had to worry about double shifts and everything else. So I said, well, maybe I ought to get interested in this chicken business and that's about the time I started fooling with chicken recipes. At night. Yeah. The night, in the afternoon, any time- Would you just fry them or what did you do? Well. Mainly I started by going to, um, going to the libraries and getting cookbooks, getting any kind of cookbook I could find. And uh, I guess I didn't do it continually, you know, every night, every night, but over a period of about 10 years. It took me about 10 years to come up with a recipe that I wanted and it, what it would do and

I'd try something. If I liked a little bit of something, I'd put this on the side and try it again and try a little bit of something else and I had formulas and all kinds of stuff. Made a mess, you know. Al, so you finally, uh uh uh, developed, uh uh, this spice. Mhm. This combination of spices. Now, that of course, became the foundation of your, your great recipe. Mhm. I want to ask you how many people know that formula now? How carefully is it guarded? Uh uh. It's very well guarded. It's very well guarded. Nobody really knows the whole formula. There are, there are several people who know different blends of it, but nobody really knows the entire thing. It's still guarded to that, to this day. It might be the only secret I really can keep in my company. So you know it. Yeah, I know it. Sure. Uh, so you come up with this formula, and, uh, now you need a name for your product. Right. And that's an interesting story. Well, there was something that took place a little earlier in between that, because what I did is I

opened my first fried chicken operation and, uh, it was in a location that I had bought, and I was going to put a doughnut shop in if it didn't work. And, uh, I opened it and, uh, it was called Chicken on the Run. What I did is I tested all my chicken and I got a taste panel and a group of people, uh, including my brother and, um, other people that were in the food business, that knew about food and I had them test this product. I fried it up for 'em both ways. I had a spicy recipe and I had a mild recipe, and I had 'em try it. And everybody unanimously said, "Listen. The chicken is delicious, the spicy stuff, but you'll never sell it because kids can't have it. It's a family product and it's this kind of thing you got to have for your kids." And, uh, I said, well, I don't agree with that, and everybody kept telling me that over and over and over again so I took that road and I built the store called Chicken on the Run, and I had mild chicken. But I sold spicy chicken as a side item. Um, it was a type of fast-food operation. I believe our

logo was, uh, our slogan was that our service is so fast you get your chicken with the change. And, uh, so what we did is we sold this mild chicken and if you wanted spicy chicken, you had to wait 15 minutes because it wasn't prepared. You had to get it prepared and I operated that for, uh, I believe about seven months and I lost $11,000 over and above my initial investment. So I was faced with it, with a challenge that I either close this place down and turn it into a doughnut shop or I, uh, try my spicy product. And I did notice that the people who were buying a spicy product were faithful to it. We weren't doing very much volume. I think when we closed that store we're doing about $1,100 a week, and, uh, the national average at that time was $5,000 a week. Wow. So we weren't doing a lot of volume. I said this chicken business might not be the business for me, so I put the spicy product together and, uh, I took three days. And over the three days, over the weekend, on

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, it was, I decided that, uh, I'd change the configuration, the service system and the inside. Did not change the image of the building and did not change anything else and, uh, started selling my spicy chicken. But, in the meantime, I had to have a name and I couldn't think of a name. And I wanted it to be just different than Chicken on the Run. So, uh, we had a little A-frame sign 4x8 two pieces of plywood sitting on the side of the road. We couldn't afford those electric signs in those days, you know. So I had it, I had it, uh, painted and, uh, the sign painter was calling. "What're you gonna do? Give me a name. You gonna open this place? Give me a name." I didn't have any name. The night before we were getting ready to open, I went to the theater with my wife and I saw this movie, "The French Connection." There's a particular scene in there when Gene Hackman busted in the doors and he said, "Hit the wall. Popeye's here." And the name Popeye just hit my, my mind, you know, and I said, I turned to my wife and I said, "Wha- What do you think if I call this place Popeye's Fried Chicken?" She said, "That's the

craziest thing I ever heard of." I said, "That's exactly what I'm a call it." I got out, put a dime in a phone and called the guy and said, "Paint a sign 'Popeye's mighty good fried chicken.' Put an arm up there", you know. And uh, that's what we did. And next day we opened a store as Popeye's Fried Chicken and, uh, sold spicy chicken. Had to wait 15 minutes for mild, at that point, and it took, uh, I gave it two weeks, really. I said, if I don't make it in two weeks, I'm gonna close it up and put a doughnut shop in here. And I believe a breakeven back then would have been about $2,500 a week. And the first week I put out a special and I had girls in the street giving out fliers because it pays half price, you know, two pieces of chicken for half the price and try our chicken's introductory offer for three days. First three days, people just jammed us. I mean, really we couldn't handle the volume. We just weren't prepared. We just, just jammed us. And then after the three days are over with, the next morning I was all prepared. Man, I had chicken all over the place. I was all ready for lunch. I had one customer.

I made all of this chicken and sold it for half price and nobody would buy it for the regular price! Regular price! Anyway, things went on. A name got out. Two weeks later, we were, di- we did, uh, we- I- we went from $1,100 when we closed the first store to about $1,800 at the end of that first week and then we went to about $2,100 and it was $2,500 and it was a break even. I said I'm a give it a couple more weeks now. We're too close. And two more weeks we were over $2,500 over the hump. And then my next move was if we make it to the national average by the year end, which would have been $5,000, I'll open three more stores. In the meantime, I made my plans for my new stores and, uh, we made the national average, went above it, and, uh, opened all three stores at one time. Now, let's jump ahead in time. Let's jump to 1982, last year. How many Popeye's stores are there now? Right now we have 337, I believe, in operation. All over the world? All over, yeah. Thirty states and, uh, 3 or 4 foreign countries. You're in Malaysia now.

Yes. And I know you're in Times Square in, uh. New York City. In New York City. You know, as a Louisianian, that gives me great pride when I'm in New York and walk around and there's a, a, a Popeye's outlet, and to think that it started by somebody back home. It's quite a very, it's a good feeling. Oh, thank you. It's a good feeling for me, too. I'll bet. Your sales in 1982 were.. Uh, in 1982, system-wide sales were just under $200 million. Just under $200 million. Now how many employees do you have at Popeye's? Um. The operating store's uh, uh, 2 divisions: 1 operating division and then a franchise company. The operating division runs about 80 stores and the franchise company runs the balance. And in those 80 stores, I imagine we have, uh, about 3500 employees. All told, about 12,000 I read. Oh, yeah. Easily. Easy. I want to ask you something that I hope, uh uh uh, the, uh, uh young people, um, uh uh, in our audience who are watching and listening... I, I hope that they'll, uh, pay special heed. When Al

Copeland hires someone, what, what does he look for? What tells you that somebody that you've hired is special? That, that they can go places with you? That they might end up an executive or.. What are you looking for? Well, basically, I, you know, I like to see us have a system. I'd like to think our system is a type of system that, that, uh we can, we can hire a kid off the street and he has an opportunity to work his way through. Um, I'm not completely satisfied with that, but we're still working on that. We want to get to a point where we can hire a kid off the street and he can actually work his way through. I mean if he, he, if he doesn't have a future planned, a career planned, and is still a manager can make $30,000 a year in a good store, then if he wants to have that objective or he wants to be a supervisor, he has an opportunity to move his way through. From, from a crew person standpoint, that gives them some sort of incentive and we do have several managers that, that are in our company today that started out as crew level people

and running stores and making $30,000 a year. And so that, that, that's one good feature. The other thing I look for when I'm looking for somebody in, in, in my staff or executive, uh, office is I'm always looking for somebody that has the ability and a quality and a drive that we feel is necessary to stay on top of Popeye's, you know. Staying on top of this game is not easy. It's, it's hard to get to the top, but it's even harder to stay on top. You know, it really is. Now, you, uh, recently, uh, came out with, uh, a new product, an additional product, those buttermilk biscuits. Yeah. How does that happen? How do you come up? How did you come up with that and why? Well. The uh, this, this industry's changing, and you have to be able to change with it. And I think Popeye's is good because we have the ability to change, you know. We can sit down quickly and make a decision. About four years ago, we started fooling with, with, uh, a secondary product. We thought, we thought would be a secondary side item type of product because I've always been disappointed with the roll. You know, it's a standard roll that you buy and half the people eat it, half

the people don't. It's a waste, but the industry, the industry dictates that you should have some sort of a bread product. And so for years we've been looking for another product to beat it. And four years ago, we started with biscuits, and we started basically putting them in, in the dinners and when we started, uh, selling them and we built a little, a little, uh, area in the store so you could see the bakery type effect happening. And, uh, we did this for about two and a half years and really weren't successful with it. But I never was satisfied with the product so we have our own research and development kitchen in our office and we continually, continually try and, and, and try new recipes and new products over and over and over again and till we finally hit on the biscuit that I liked, and when I hit on the biscuit that I really liked, I took the other one out and put this one back in. And it was almost an overnight success. It's just that it's a dynamite product. It's, it's unbelievable. It's, today it, uh, represents an average of 25 percent of sales, and I believe that that is the largest increase in the fast-food business for a

secondary item ever, including for anybody. McDonald's, Burger King, anybody, as a single additional product to increase your business 25 percent in sales. Al, uh, uh, an unpleasant but realistic question. Why, uh uh, do those franchise operations that don't make it, and you hear about 'em in every facet of the business from hamburgers to chickens to pizzas. Why do those that fail, what, what, is there a, a cause or connecting link that you all have discovered? Well, you know, I believe, I believe in a theory that, uh, if you operate a business, you have to operate it to the best of your ability. You should be able to stay on top of it. We train people, you know. We have a training system; we have a system and that system works. People come to us and they pay us for the system, and then we give them ongoing, updated controls and programs that, that keep 'em happy because they pay us a commission for us doing that and that's our job. But I also believe that if you put a man in a

position to run, for example, a $10,000-a-week store and his abilities are to run a $5,000-a-week store, he's going to bring that business down to where his level is of running it. So, what we're really talking about here, is that when you're getting involved with some franchisees who don't want to spend the money, don't want to spend the time, don't want to listen to the, to the, to the, uh, to the programs that the company puts together. And any business, whether it be Popeye's Fried Chicken, McDonald's or anybody else's business -- anybody in a fast-food franchising business or any business for that matter that I know of. They're going to fail. So, in other words-- People. People. People are everything. If, if you don't, if you don't have the proper people and not properly trained, there's no shortcuts for that. You just, there's just no way you can shortcut that. You've got to have the good people, and you've got to pay the people properly, gotta make them happy and they'll make you happy. Say I'm a young man or a young woman in 1983 and I want to go into business. What would Al Copeland advise me to go into? [laughs] Well, I think uh, I think you'd almost have to go in any business that you're, that, that you

felt that you had the skills or the knowledge to be able to, uh, develop in, uh, no matter what, what phase of the business is that you may want to go to. I mean, for example, if uh, if you want to be in a fast-food business, again get with a company that can give you a career, that can show you a way to start. And, given the years and the time it may take, get you to a position that you think will be better than a position that you're gonna be in today. I mean, you know, that you're looking, that you're looking at. So I would say that, uh, no matter what business it is, whether it be the fast-food business or anything, you just ...you just have to just have to look at it, think about it, think, if you can make a career out of it and if you can, then you ought to work as hard as you possibly can to do better than the next person so you can achieve what you need to achieve. Is the fast-food business still wide open? And I guess what I'm getting at: Right now, is there some kid out there, who like Al Copeland, is going to work at night and come up with a formula and come up with something brand new? Is that going to still happen?

I believe that's America. I think it can happen any day. You know. I think if it, if something happened to me tomorrow, I'd find another way. How has, uh uh, success -- this monumental success -- changed Al Copeland's life and has it? [laughs] Oh, yes, drastically. Yeah. Yeah. It certainly has. It's uh, it's allowed me to do things that I never dreamed that I could do, you know, and, and I never thought I'd have the, the uh, the money to, uh, I always wanted it, but I never thought I'd have the money, uh, to do the things that, uh, I always wanted to do like drive fancy cars and have nice houses and have sort of a flamboyant life, I guess they call it. How does Al Copeland handle disappointments? In other words, they even come to rich people. How do you deal with them? You just have to stay on top of 'em. Just keep on trucking? That's it? Keep on top. Oh. Never let it get you down. If it does, you're finished. Uh, now let's talk about a little sideline of yours. You drive powerboats. Yeah.

How did you get in that? I don't know. It just kind of evolved. You know, we started with...I started years ago on a Saturday and Sunday and just playing with uh, with uh, a little boat. I bought a boat and it was a jet boat, the fastest boat on a lake, and I really got a kick out of beating everybody. Till one day somebody beat me. And then-- [laughs] --I bought a faster one-- That drove a guy like you crazy! That's right. So I got a faster boat, and I beat them, and that went on for a couple of years and somebody beat me again and then the next step was offshore. So I took it and started going offshore racing and doing very well. Is that an expensive hobby? Well, I think it's more of a business rather than a hobby today, you know. It's evolved into that. There's a lot of, there's a tremendous amount of publicity that comes out of it, a tremendous amount for the company and for all the different stations that we're involved in, you know. ESPN's picked up all the races last year and, uh, uh, Turner is talking about picking 'em up this year with his World Sports Network, and I think by next year we have a good possibility of being on ABC, CBS or

NBC. Al, will you ever diversify or have you? In other words, go into endeavors beyond the fast-food business? I have. I have and, uh, and I still will, but I particularly, my heart is in the fast-food business and I like to stay in it, you know. I, I do it for other investment reasons and, uh, just for side... But you haven't started any major undertakings, uh uh, like the, uh, Popeye's franchise? You- No. You haven't done that? No, nothing that, uh, other than the fast-food that I can really put my heart into, no. But we have other businesses. You do have other businesses? Mhm. What uh, what do you do in your spare time? You must have some beyond racing that powerboat or is that your relaxation? Very much so. It starts out to be relaxation because it gets kind of tense towards a sort of a race. But other than that, it's. Yeah. I do relax and I enjoy it.

You travel a great deal, Al? Very much. Do you mind? No. No, I enjoy that, too. No. Are you constantly looking for new locations? How does a person get going in that business? In other words, do people contact you? I want to have a Popeye's franchise? How does that work? Well, most of, most of our franchisees were sort of word-of-mouth franchisees. We do very, very little advertising for franchisees. This is something that somebody they know of, some way they try the product and they come in and try to qualify to become a franchisee. Basically, we don't do a tremendous amount of advertising. Today we're starting to do it just a little bit. It's not like it used to be. I'm John Doe and I want to open a Popeye's franchise. What kind of money am I looking at? What's it going to cost me? Well if you, it all depends on the area that you're talking about and the amount of stores. We sell basically a package of five stores minimum unless it's a small town. A small town only requires one and you

have to pay an initial franchise fee and then you have to have...then there's two ways to go from there. You either find somebody to build the building for you on their land or on land that you want to buy and you lease back from them or you invest your money yourself and own your own land and your own building and it's our recommendation that when you start, you should have somebody do a build to suit for you because you need your capital to keep, to keep the building rolling and keep the business rolling unless you're only talking about one store. If you're talking about five, you need to keep the momentum going. So, generally, from, from the standpoint of having to build a building and own the building, own the equipment yourself, you're talking about $325,000, $350,000. And if you're talking about somebody build a suit for you, you're still going to have $75,000, $100,000 exclusive of the equipment in there. And I'm talking about over and above that $350,000 that your startup costs and whatever else you need. It's really expensive.

When you look back on your life and what you've achieved, why do you think Al Copeland made it? Well. I mean you and I both know a lot of people who had some ambition and some dreams and it didn't just - that's why I mentioned luck earlier. Sometimes things just don't work out. Why do you think? What do you attribute it to, really? And that's a difficult question, I know that. Well, you know, we've all been involved in situations where luck...and people think luck's involved and you know we have to try and you don't make it. I just, I just believe that you can't settle for not making it. You have to do it. I mean it's going to work if you, if you just get all your ducks in a row, you understand what you're doing and you get it all together and you know exactly what you're going to do. And you go for it. And then if you make it, fine. If you don't make it, you keep doing it until you make it. If the chicken business hadn't worked out, if that spicy chicken hadn't been bought, did you already have something else in mind that you were going to try?

I can't remember what it was, but I'm sure I did. And I was dedicated to chicken. I was dedicated to food, so I'd have been in the food business some kind of a way. Al, in your family background, your folks and so on. Were they business people? Is that hereditary? No, not really. My brother -- I have two brothers that were successful. And I only have three brothers and there's only three of us in a family. Myself, my brother Bill was the oldest and my brother Gilbert is a middle brother and Gilbert was successful. Took him many years to be successful and he wound up being successful in New Orleans in the doughnut business. Bill was successful in businesses that he was in. But as children, no. That was not the case. Well, Al, you've been a delightful guest, and I hope that as I said at the beginning of this program, I hope that some folks out there got some inspiration and some ideas. And, in the meantime, all Louisiana is proud of your magnificent accomplishment. Thank you for being with us.

Thank you. That's very nice of you. I appreciate it very much. Funding for the production of Louisiana Legends is provided in part by the Friends of Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by Union National Life Insurance, a Louisiana company serving Louisiana and the South since

1926