Posted on 03/23/2008 4:04:32 PM PDT by chemicalman
Al Copeland, a hard-charging, high-living entrepreneur who built an empire on spicy fried chicken and fluffy white biscuits, died Sunday in Munich, Germany, of complications from cancer treatment. He was 64.
He had gone to Munich for treatment of his illness, which had been diagnosed in November, said Kit Wohl, his spokeswoman.
Born in poverty, Mr. Copeland burst onto the scene in 1972, when he opened his first Popeyes fried-chicken stand, in Arabi. It was the start of a franchise that, under his leadership, had 700 outlets, not only in the United States but also in Puerto Rico, Panama and Kuwait.
The money he earned led to public displays of opulence such as speedboats, which he displayed in a glass-walled showroom along Interstate 10 when he wasn't racing them; a Lamborghini sports car parked outside his corporate headquarters; and, of course, his massive Christmas displays, which required sheriff's deputies to direct the traffic outside his Metairie home.
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
RIP Al.
Had the pleasure of meeting him a few times when his office was in the same building my ex-wife worked. He loved his offshore racing. As a joke I was asking him to convert one of his boats into a fishing rig for the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo. He got a good laugh out of that.
nothing disagreeable in the text that appears on the thread here.
i’ve heard that popeyes has decent tasting chicken. the problem is that i don’t have enough cash to buy a 50cal. machine gun to enter the neighborhoods that serve it. ;)
You can say that for Church’s Fried Chicken also. Who taught them how to cut up a chicken anyway?
We used to be able to walk up the street and take people to see his lights and the guy across the street. Every other light display from then on was just a waste of time.
Why did he go to Germany for cancer treatment??
Yes, that’s him.
Ozone therapy? What kind of cancer did he have?
Ironic that he died on Easter Sunday. He used to attend the same Church I did, except that he mostly only showed up on Easter. He would always arrive late with his most current wife and little girls and he was dressed to the 9’s in a white suit, and the little girls all had big bows in their hair. He would park his white Rolls-Royce on what we call “neutral grounds” here in South Louisiana, and never get a ticket because he was friends with Sheriff Harry Lee. (Probably contributed to his campaign). He loved to make an entrance.
RIP
RIP.
We towed his speedboat in once when the engine conked out. LOL. I used to see him in West End park by his yacht mooring and sometimes he would have his V8 motorcycles out. We would stop and admire them and chat a bit. Haven’t seen him since Katrina.
I liked his restaurants, until expansion without adequate quality control made some of them less than sterling. The Copeland’s across from Tulane in the 1980s was excellent, and, contrary to Outback’s advertising, sold the first Onion Mums (bloomin’ onion in OB’s vocabulary). Copeland’s was better, also.
Couldn’t say for sure but I’m guessing this is not him. I’m going back too many years to be sure. Everybody looked younger then...go figure.
No, that is him.
That is a picture of Al.
The article is an incredibly good read! I had forgotten that he came out of the housing projects and was a high school drop-out.
RIP.
Their biscuits and dirty rice are my favorite, the chicken is OK and IMO not much different than church’s. Try a Army post(if you can) if you are too afraid to go into the hood.
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