Profile

The man who founded it also founded Popeyes

Al Copeland opened Copeland’s of New Orleans in 1983. Eleven years earlier he had opened a fried chicken restaurant in Arabi, just downriver from New Orleans, called Chicken on the Run. It struggled. He reworked the recipe to a spicier Louisiana Cajun style, renamed it after Gene Hackman’s character in The French Connection, and Popeyes became one of the largest chicken chains in the world.

Copeland’s was what he built next, and the same instinct runs through it — Louisiana seasoning applied to a familiar American format, at a price ordinary people actually pay.

What it is, honestly

Copeland’s is a casual-dining Cajun and Creole restaurant with a focused set of steak and seafood specialties, not a white-tablecloth chophouse. It earns its place in this directory because it takes its steaks seriously within that format and because the Cajun and French preparations around them are genuine rather than decorative.

Set your expectations accordingly and it is a good dinner. Come looking for a dry-aging room and you will be disappointed.

The Harvey location

This restaurant is at 2333 Manhattan Boulevard in Harvey, on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish across the river from New Orleans. It is a neighborhood location serving West Bank families rather than a French Quarter tourist room, which is arguably the more authentic version.

Al Copeland died in 2008. The restaurants carry on, along with the Cheesecake Bistro concept he started alongside them.

Prices

Copeland’s does not publish a machine-readable priced menu that SteakMap could verify, so we quote no figures. Grade and aging are not published, and we make no claim about them.

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