Burger King Buying Popeyes

pseudo3d
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by pseudo3d »

storewanderer wrote:Burger King is a puzzle to me but seems to have some kind of a following.

Popeye's is an excellent product, but a poor value given the portion/prices. There seem to be some poorly run locations, too but somehow those spicy tenders and red beans and rice seem to always taste great even if the location was dirty, portioning was questionable, and service was slow. Popeyes has really slaughtered KFC.

Tim Horton's has not done well in the US. In Canada everyone knows them and loves them, but that is not the case in the US. I feel like even though their product is pretty good when fresh, they never really tried to sell people in the US on it. The US locations do not have near the variety of the ones up in Canada and some of the more interesting muffins/cookies sold in Canada are not sold in the US. Sure they have most of the donuts but so do a lot of other places in the US.
Come to think of it, most of the Popeyes I'm familiar with are all in gas stations. There were three gas station Popeyes in my town, then one moved to a stand-alone location in the southern part of town...and soon closed up shop as it was just out in the middle of nowhere, a block away from the highway and invisible from it. Then a hotel was built next to it with a second one planned behind it, it reopened as a Marco's Pizza, and has done very well....but the others in gas stations do well (in the "strip portion" of the gas station, not directly part of the c-store).
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by buckguy »

The combos probably can work in places like mall food courts, airports and locations in urban cores or transit hubs where a single operator may lease multiple spaces. In fact, I wonder if BK's NYC franchisee (Reise) inspired this, as they probably also have the Tim Horton franchises at places like Penn Station and operate a lot of multi-bannered outlets of one sort or another.

The best thing you can say about Tim Hortons is that they're better than Dunkin or Krispy Kreme, which isn't saying much. The rare independent donut shop is almost guaranteed to be better than any of these. Post-Wendy's, Tim Horton's cut back on their line and, among other things, eliminated their iconic blueberry fritter. They seem well positioned to be mismanaged by BK.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by Super S »

I have never eaten at Popeyes for the simple fact that they aren't really convenient for me. But I know people who have and love the chain.

Burger King in recent years has had a lot of issues, everything from odd advertising (the creepy "king" comes to mind) to so-so food offerings, many of which are prepared ahead of time and reheated in the microwave. Their food actually doesn't taste bad if it's fresh, but that is a rare occurrence. More often than not, especially at breakfast, you end up with sandwiches that are hot on the outside but still cold in the middle.

I get mixed signals from Burger King. In my area they have been aggressively remodeling their locations, which signals that they are investing in the chain, but when I have visited the remodeled locations, I have found the same mediocre food inside. Go to another town and you see restaurants in various states of repair. Go to another and you see many closed locations due to franchise issues...I remember a period when Tacoma lost most if not all of their Burger King locations. Burger King in recent years has had more inconsistency than a national chain should have.

I really hope that Burger King's issues don't rub off on another chain and end up bringing another down...the thought reminds me of what has been happening to Sears/Kmart.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by buckguy »

BK's problems go back years, even decades and I am mystified they're still in business. The execution by franchisees has been erratic for as long as I can remember and their featured items have been hit or miss. They seem stronger outside the US than domestically.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by Brian Lutz »

About the only thing I think BK really does well is breakfast, where they have much better offerings than McDonald's does. Aside from that I would probably prefer McDonald's over BK. In much the same way that Jack in the Box does, BK seems to have this really "heavy" feeling to it, to the point that you could walk in and order nothing but a Diet Coke and you would still walk out feeling like you just ate 6,000 calories.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by jamcool »

buckguy wrote:BK's problems go back years, even decades and I am mystified they're still in business. The execution by franchisees has been erratic for as long as I can remember and their featured items have been hit or miss. They seem stronger outside the US than domestically.
Don't forget BK has been through a bunch of ownership changes...Pillsbury in the 70s, Grand Metropolitan in the 80s, and now 3G Capital/Buffett today. It's hard to complete with McD when you have different bosses every few years
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by buckguy »

I'm sure the changes in ownership are part of the problem, but they haven't changed the underlying problems with their business model. And yet they're still in business.

It seems as though businesses can reach a certain mass where a tremendous amount of incompetence is needed to really bring them down and even then it may not kill them. Look at Sears--limping a long for decades and even under blindly inept management they're still around. And Winn Dixie.....easily the most horrible grocery chain ever and they still exist, albeit shrunken and under different management. It took A&P about 60 years of missing the boat on every trend in the business, a couple changes in ownership and multiple bankruptcies to finally expire.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by norcalriteaidclerk »

What I have noticed is that while BK has been stagnant,Popeye's has only ramped up local expansion in recent years.As recently,as a decade ago,they were hit-and-miss in Sacro.To be gaining a critical mass,they must be doing something right.Ditto for El Pollo Loco...
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by SamSpade »

norcalriteaidclerk wrote:.Ditto for El Pollo Loco...
:cry: Still miss the EPL stores up here in Oregon. Not sure what happened with the franchisee. Heard they're growing in Utah, too.

Popeye's has expanded locally in the Portland area as well. Originally the only stores we had were opened here because someone relocated and missed them so much (both were on NE MLK Ave in NE Portland). Now there are several, including a newly re-opened Arby's space on SE Powell Blvd and 82nd.
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Re: Burger King Buying Popeyes

Post by BillyGr »

buckguy wrote:BK's problems go back years, even decades and I am mystified they're still in business. The execution by franchisees has been erratic for as long as I can remember and their featured items have been hit or miss. They seem stronger outside the US than domestically.
Very likely that the franchisees can be as much (sometimes maybe even more) of the issue than the main company.

In this area, there have been quite a few stores closed over the years, but aside from a couple scattered spots most of them were the "smaller" franchisees.
Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that the main franchisee in the area has a history going back before being part of Burger King, when they ran their own chain of burger restaurants...
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