Lane Cardwell

In Memory of Al Copeland

The restaurant industry lost one of its most colorful, and successful, icons on Easter Sunday. Al Copeland lived large, played large, and leaves behind a huge legacy within our industry. Dave Farkas has written a moving memoriam in his blog about Al. I wanted to do the same.

Al was so colorful, so outrageous, so over the top, so successful, so everything, that it is easy to overlook his achievements within our industry. Popeye’s and Copeland’s of New Orleans were groundbreaking concepts when they were introduced. There is the Al Copeland that you thought you knew from reading about him, and from seeing him at conferences. If you are lucky, there is the Al Copeland that you got to know from spending time with him. I was lucky.

I met Al in 1997 through Phil Romano as we were beginning to expand Eatzi’s. Al had heard about Eatzi’s and had come to Dallas to see it and to meet Phil. After spending a day looking at the operation and watching all of the chefs, bakers, and pastry chefs create their products, Al fell in love. He was a food guy and this was a food concept.

Al told Phil that he wanted to get involved with Eatzi’s somehow. Investor, franchisee, he didn't care. He just saw all of that food being created daily and wanted somehow to be part of it. Phil asked me to go to New Orleans and spend some time with Al and see if it made sense to get him involved. So I flew out, and for two days I lived a life that you read about in books and see in movies.

Al picked me up at the airport in his white, stretch limo. Everywhere we drove people waved at us because they knew his car, and when we stopped they would come by the car to talk to Al. We visited different restaurants that Al owned. Copeland’s, Straya, and others. As we sat in the restaurants people would come up and ask for his autograph, or to have their picture taken with him. Like any other good celebrity, which he was in New Orleans, he would always accommodate them.

Around 10:00 p.m. we went to Al’s office to talk. I later learned that getting to the office this early was unusual for Al, and was probably only being done on my account. It is hard to describe the appearance of his décor except to say that Elvis, in “Viva Las Vegas”, would have felt right at home. We talked for a couple of hours and then went into the test kitchens to look at some menu items that he was working on for Straya. Truly a food guy, he was in the test kitchen almost nightly working on some new product or spice. That concluded Al showing me his business side.

The next day he showed me his fun side. Al described himself as a “speed freak”. He liked going fast. His offshore racing boats consistently were among the world’s fastest boats. He took me out on Lake Pontchartrain on one of his “slower” boats. He pointed out where the oxygen mask was in case we flipped over, and needed to breathe. Then we took off. 140 mph feels pretty fast when you are skimming across the water. I offered to pay to have the seat upholstery cleaned.

Our next stop was to his Boss Hoss dealership. A Boss Hoss is a motorcycle powered by a Chevy V8 engine. He had one parked next to a Harley to show the difference in size. No offense to you Harley riders, but the comparison made the Harley look like a Vespa. Why own a dealership? Al explained that it is no fun to ride these alone so he would always load up a couple of 18-wheelers filled with Boss Hosses, and he and his friends would take off for a week of touring. Al kept his sports car collection in the back of the dealership. If you have ever coveted a particular fast car, it was probably in the back. He even had a Delorean.

Next on the tour was his Metairie home. It was as large as Al’s persona. He explained that even though it was only August, it was time to start working on the Christmas decorations. Al grew up poor. He used to look at the Christmas displays that filled the grounds of the mansions in New Orleans and told himself that if he ever made it big he would have the biggest display in the city. His display was so big that it required sheriff’s deputies to route the traffic through the neighborhood. He invited me to come back at Christmas and experience the holiday Copeland-style. And I did. It was as flashy, fun, and theatrical as Al was in life.

The last time that I saw Al was at the Elliot Conference in New York last year. We talked like 10 years had not sailed by. He was working on new ventures, new products, and new ideas. He still looked bigger than life. And that’s how I will always remember him.

Posted by Lane Cardwell on March 25, 2008 | Comments (0)