QSR May 2022

LEADERSHI P PROF I LE

even spotted walking through the front door with Popeyes bags. But Popeyes wasn’t threatening legal action. In a move that would come to illustrate the chain’s stance on the subject, it asked Sweet Dixie Kitchen to introduce the product. The idea being, “we promise our new sandwich is worth the visit.” That was always the meat inside the bun, so to speak. Take a taste test and see who comes out on top. Over the next two years, the same company line darted in from every corner of the industry. Zaxby’s, McDonald’s, even Taco Bell ( if you con sider a “Sandwich Taco” a sandwich) created new offerings to enter the so-called “Chicken Sandwich Wars.” And it always came back to Popeyes. By February 2021, the company revealed one of the more eye-popping statistics in quick-service history: From pre-chicken sandwich to present, average-unit volumes rose $400,000 to $1.8 million. Global crisis notwithstanding. “I think what people often forget,” Siddiqui says, “is just a few months after the sandwich, COVID hit.” From 2019 to 2020, Popeyes posted four of the best quar terly same-store sales increases in the quick-service industry over the last 10 years. One example—Q4 2019, when comps skyrocketed 37.9 percent. Amy Alarcon, Popeyes VP of culinary innovation, who has

been with the brand since 2007, says the chicken sandwich “cer tainly changed the landscape for us internally as well.” “We kind of instigated this shift where almost everyone in [quick service] suddenly changed how they were doing their chicken sandwich,” she says. “We like to think we set really high standards for ourselves and it was f lattering that we estab lished a standard for the industry.” More recently, focus has turned to what Popeyes’ second act might look like. How can it leverage an indelible moment in fast-food history into something more lasting? As the brand became, “quote end quote hot,” Siddiqui says, investor and franchisee demand popped across the globe. Pro spective operators wanted in. Current ones wanted more. In fact, for many years, the brand didn’t have new franchisees entering the system. Today, there’s a waiting list, he says. Siddiqui, formerly president of parent company Restaurant Brand International’s Asia-Pacific region before joining Popeyes in September 2020, led the launch of the brand in China and the Philippines. In both cases, he says, lines of four, five, even seven hours, snaked around openings. “I think part of that—much of that—is rooted in having an unbeatable product,” he says. “But also, a lot of the momentum we’ve seen here [ in the U.S.].” It’s a simple formula with wide-ranging implications: as Pop

Q POPEYES’ CHICKEN SANDWICH HAS SPAWNED NO SHORTAGE OF COPYCATS THROUGHOUT THE INDUSTRY.

AMY ALARCON VP OF CULINARY INNOVATION

POPEYES (3), AMY ALARCON: BOLD MAN & THE SEA MEDIA

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MAY 2022 | QSR | www.qsrmagazine.com