Popeyes closures in Idaho

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Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by storewanderer »

It looks like Popeyes has not fared well in Idaho. In the past week, locations in Twin Falls, Ammon, Chubbuck, and Boise (1) have closed very suddenly. These locations were all franchised by a franchisee called NorCal Cajun. I think they were using NorCal pricing in Idaho and I can see how this may not have been the best strategy.

NorCal Cajun is generally is a pretty lousy operator of Popeyes locations even back in NorCal. Service is very poor. The food is usually pretty good despite their operational issues on service, speed, cleanliness, and payment. They have various scattered locations including Concord, Pittsburg, Redding, Anderson, and their operations are generally not great. Reviews online will validate that opinion. But NorCal Cajun was willing to open a ton of new Popeyes units over the past 5 years so that is how they have ended up with so many locations.

It is unfortunate a bad franchisee has made it so the very good Popeyes brand has failed across these locations in Idaho.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by pseudo3d »

Eh. Popeyes to me is mostly found in rougher areas and gas stations, unless the store happens to be decades old. The fewer newer stores tend to hang out near highways but have uneven track records. There has ever been one stand-alone Popeyes built in my hometown which opened a block away from the freeway but it wasn't on the road that the freeway interchanged with, nor had a sign visible from the freeway, so to access it you either had to go through a stoplight or make two left turns before you found a lonely restaurant hidden behind an office building.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by cjd »

One opened here about a year ago. It actually opened in an old Wendy's building that got totally gutted down to the walls. After the construction was complete, it seemed to take ages to open as if it seemed it wasn't going to.

I have yet to try it, a combination of the crazy traffic it had at first, like any new eatery, and my cutting back on fast food, and also my just forgetting it being here.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by storewanderer »

Wow, I find Popeyes to offer the best chicken tenders in the business (especially the spicy ones, and the naked/blackened unbreaded ones are very very excellent if you can get a location to make them since they went off menu). I also think the red beans and rice are very excellent and I like the spice on their gravy on the mashed potatoes but overall that dish is just okay.

Their nuggets are lousy and their bone-in chicken I've had very mixed results with. Can't speak for much else they offer.

10-15 years ago the only Popeyes I knew of were in rough neighborhoods in Sacramento. But in the past 5-7 years they have expanded to various neighborhoods and are now in a variety of locations. They have quite a few different franchisees in northern California which has led to some serious growth in that region for the chain. The franchisee here in Reno is from Texas now after the local one had to retire and I think is their second largest franchisee with various other territories. Not real well run locations either but when the food is good, and if often is, it really hits it out of the park.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by Alpha8472 »

I have been to the Concord, California Popeye's many times and it is a nightmare. It is run by the operator mentioned above. I normally do not complain, but the employees at this location were some of the rudest and slowest employees ever. I had a coupon and the lady refused to take it at the drive thru. She immediately hung up on me at the drive thru. I was going to order anyway and pay full price. Apparently they didn't want my business.

When I went inside the wait time was over 35 minutes and a crowd of angry customers was standing around complaining about not being helped. I thought that there was going to be a riot. It was so bad I considered calling the police. I had never felt so unsafe before in a fast food restaurant. The employees had extreme attitude as if they wanted to antagonize customers. This is not a rough neighborhood, but the employees seemed like they were from somewhere else.

I went back another time and waited 20 minutes at the drive thru order speaker only to have an employee say "Are you still there?" They were probably hoping that all of their drive thru customers would just go away.

The food was very good, but the entire ordering experience was a nightmare.

This location is an ARCO Popeye's Combo. It was featured on ARCO's website as a sort of flagship prototype a few years ago. It is only a few years old.

Some of these fast food places hire some scary people. Another nearby restaurant had a shooting by an employee. A lot of these people are armed. When the police tried to interview the coworkers, the coworkers refused to cooperate with police.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by Super S »

In my area, Popeye's as well as Church's have been very inconsistent with where they open locations. I haven't had a chance to try Popeye's, but I do know they have a couple locations around Portland, as well as Vancouver, WA. KFC locations are on the decline in Vancouver after a longtime franchise operator sold a few years ago. As for Church's, they tend to open single locations and close them in a very short time, and strike me as having a poor franchise system. There certainly is opportunity for Popeye's, at least in this area, if their food is good.

Judging by some of the comments, it almost seems like Popeye's suffers from some of the same inconsistency issues that Subway is experiencing as of late.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by SamSpade »

@SuperS, the best run Popeye's around Portland are the ones on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. I'm not sure if all of the area locations are run by the same franchisee, but these two are especially good.

The one in Beaverton struggles to find adequate staffing but usually gets by.

As for the ones in Idaho, this is really a shame. My aunt claims the local chat in Idaho Falls/Ammon was that the one there was doing fine, but I guess if it's part of a larger franchisee problem, then things happen. It is part of a new destination shopping center with Cabela's as one of its anchors.

The Chubbuck one took over a location that's been unsuccessful for Del Taco and Taco John's, I believe.

Hopefully someone in Idaho will be able to re-open them as KFC isn't nearly as delicious in my opinion.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by SamSpade »

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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by cjd »

Alpha8472 wrote: May 2nd, 2019, 5:18 am I have been to the Concord, California Popeye's many times and it is a nightmare. It is run by the operator mentioned above. I normally do not complain, but the employees at this location were some of the rudest and slowest employees ever. I had a coupon and the lady refused to take it at the drive thru. She immediately hung up on me at the drive thru. I was going to order anyway and pay full price. Apparently they didn't want my business.

When I went inside the wait time was over 35 minutes and a crowd of angry customers was standing around complaining about not being helped. I thought that there was going to be a riot. It was so bad I considered calling the police. I had never felt so unsafe before in a fast food restaurant. The employees had extreme attitude as if they wanted to antagonize customers. This is not a rough neighborhood, but the employees seemed like they were from somewhere else.

I went back another time and waited 20 minutes at the drive thru order speaker only to have an employee say "Are you still there?" They were probably hoping that all of their drive thru customers would just go away.

The food was very good, but the entire ordering experience was a nightmare.

This location is an ARCO Popeye's Combo. It was featured on ARCO's website as a sort of flagship prototype a few years ago. It is only a few years old.

Some of these fast food places hire some scary people. Another nearby restaurant had a shooting by an employee. A lot of these people are armed. When the police tried to interview the coworkers, the coworkers refused to cooperate with police.
20 minutes waiting for them to answer at the drive thru? EEK, that's terrible. I think I would have left after 5 minutes. In fact, I'm not so sure I would have been back after the first time. Makes me wonder if it's even safe to eat anything from their given their lackadaisical attitude toward customers.
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Re: Popeyes closures in Idaho

Post by storewanderer »

So it appears NorCal Cajun is also known as Elite Enterprises and they are going to be a Habit Franchisee in Idaho and Eastern Washington. So some of these closing Popeyes will be converting into Habits still run by this outfit. Wow.

I sure hope they can run Habits better than they can run Popeyes...

I wonder what will happen to the existing corporate Habits in Idaho...

Habit is like 75%+ corporate operated locations and isn't too big on franchising.
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