For most fast food fans, Popeyes means a red box of fried chicken, a biscuit, and a silent prayer that the mac and cheese hasn’t congealed. But in Lafayette, Louisiana, you could pile your plate sky-high with all of it — buffet-style. Yes, seriously. If you think you know everything about Popeyes, think again. This is the kind of deep-cut trivia most fans don’t know about Popeyes — there was once a time when some locations featured an all-you-can-eat buffet. By 2010, Lafayette was one of just a few stores still holding onto the setup, along with sites in Huntsville, Alabama, and Panama City, Florida. As the years went on, those other buffets quietly disappeared, leaving Lafayette’s Oil Center location on Pinhook Road as the final one of its kind.
It was just a strip-mall Popeyes with a buffet line, but it had a loyal following and a certain legendary status for those who found it. When indoor dining shut down during COVID, the buffet did too. Even after the restaurant reopened, the trays never returned. Staff eventually confirmed what locals suspected: the buffet wasn’t just on hold — it was gone for good.
The End Of An All-You-Can-Eat Outlier
Before it became known for flaky biscuits and long drive-thru lines, Popeyes was first named Chicken on the Run, a short-lived concept that failed to catch on in 1972 New Orleans. After a quick rebrand and a lot more spice, it grew into a Southern-born fast food chain that eventually made its way across the country. But even as Popeyes expanded coast to coast, the Lafayette buffet stayed quietly rogue.
For about $10, customers could load up on fried chicken and classic sides. The trays were open daily from mid-morning through dinner, offering a full day’s worth of greasy temptation. At one point, the buffet line included outliers like spaghetti and tacos — until corporate pulled the plug on anything that wasn’t already on the menu. Those offbeat extras were a casualty of tightening brand control…