SmitCo To Open Popeyes
by July 7, 2003 12:00 am 757 views
SmitCo Eateries Inc. of Pine Bluff plans to open a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits restaurant at 538 E. Robinson Ave. in Springdale by July 21 and eight more in Northwest Arkansas by 2008.
Rodney Coats of Pine Bluff and Brian D. Smith of Springdale are partners in SmitCo, which currently owns three Subway sandwich shops in Pine Bluff.
Smith said SmitCo has acquired the franchise rights for Popeyes in nine Arkansas counties ranging from Fort Smith in the south to Bentonville in the north.
“We bought the rights to develop nine Popeyes by 2008,” Smith said.
“We want to possibly open two a year,” Coats said. The next Popeyes will be in either Bentonville or Fayetteville, he added.
Since 1993, Popeyes has been a division of AFC Enterprises Inc., which franchised and operated 4,131 restaurants, bakeries and cafes as of May 18 in the United States, Puerto Rico and 32 foreign countries under the brand names Popeyes, Church’s Chicken, Cinnabon, Seattle’s Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia Coffee. AFC had system-wide sales of about $2.7 billion in 2002.
Popeyes began when Al Copeland opened Chicken on the Run in downtown New Orleans in 1972. To increase business, he added spicy Cajun flavor to the recipe, and by 1976 he opened his first Popeyes franchise. Over the next decade, Copeland added 500 more Popeyes locations. In 1996, Popeyes opened its 1,000th restaurant. By 2000, AFC sales hit $1.2 billion.
Copeland also started Copeland’s of New Orleans, which has a restaurant in Rogers’ Scottsdale Center.