When I lived in New Orleans, I was told that if you want really spicy chicken, you’ll have to go to a Popeye’s in the black part of town...they toned it down for the white folks.
Yep, that's true. It wasn't that they changed the spice mix, but they definitely played with the amount that they used. The "mobile" Popeye's (built on an 18-wheeler trailer) that they used to haul out to the Mardi Gras parade routes always seemed to use an extra measure of Al Copeland's spice mix.
I haven’t eaten any Popeye’s fried chicken since that last time in Galveston. Every customer and every employee was black and we (white) all got food poisoning. Are black people just tougher than we are? Or did they make us a special batch?