The last time Popeyes had a genuine cultural moment, people were getting into fistfights in parking lots over a chicken sandwich. That was 2019, which in fast-food years might as well be the Eisenhower administration.
Now the chain, which is part of Restaurant Brands International, is looking for someone new to recapture that lightning. Matt Rubin, the chief marketing officer, has departed the company, along with other members of the marketing team, as Popeyes works to reverse what the parent company has delicately characterized as slumping sales results.
The moves come at a moment when the broader restaurant industry is feeling the effects of consumers who have decided, for reasons that may include inflation and general exhaustion, to eat at home more often. A recent analysis of the top 500 chain restaurants found that sales slowed again in 2025, though certain categories — coffee, beverages, snacks and, notably, chicken — have held up better than others.
Whether that relative resilience in the chicken sector makes Popeyes' troubles more or less concerning is a question the company's leadership is presumably asking itself. (If chicken is doing fine and you are not, the problem may be closer to home than the macroeconomy.)
Mr. Rubin's tenure included the considerable challenge of following up on the chicken sandwich phenomenon, which generated the sort of organic attention that marketing departments spend years trying to manufacture and usually fail. The sandwich, introduced under previous leadership, became one of those rare products that people discussed without being paid to do so.
Restaurant Brands International, which also owns Burger King and Tim Hortons, has not announced a successor. The search, one assumes, will focus on candidates who can make lightning strike twice — or at least keep it from striking somewhere else.
Original story published in Nation's Restaurant News: "Popeyes’ CMO is out as the chain looks to reenergize sales"