Memphis Popeye’s closed for cleaning after employee records roaches

Alex Coleman
·2 min read
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Popeye’s chicken restaurant in Memphis was closed Thursday after a former employee shared now-viral video that appeared to show roaches in the kitchen.

At Popeyes restaurants, their slogan is “Love That Chicken From Popeye’s.” But former Memphis employee Tykeia Ransom — still wearing her Popeye’s uniform — told WREG that her former manager apparently didn’t love a couple of videos she recorded and posted on social media.   

“I got fired for the previous video that I had recorded on TikTok,” Ransom said.

One video from Ransom allegedly involved a dispute between the manager and a customer. Another more disturbing video showed roaches in the restaurant at 4720 Showcase Boulevard near the Perkins exit.

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“It’s very bad,” Ransom said. “It’s everywhere and all in the food you know and everything you can think of. All in the rice.”

Ransom had only worked at Popeye’s for two months, and claims she repeatedly told her general manager about the roaches.

“The G.M. knew about it. It’s been a problem, you get what I’m saying?” Ransom said. “And when I tried to tell her about it, we got into it.”

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Ransom says the manager didn’t want to get rid of the roach-infested food and still wanted to sell it.

“She didn’t want to throw the rice away, like, this is product. And I was like, okay so what, you want me to sell the roach stuff?” Ransom said.

WREG reached out to Popeye’s. In an email statement, Popeye’s wrote:

“Absolutely nothing about the condition of the restaurant in this video is acceptable. Even though the Health Department visited yesterday and confirmed no issues at the restaurant located at 4720 Showcase Blvd, Memphis, TN, we shut it down, thoroughly cleaned and will not reopen until we understand what happened and team members have been retrained on proper procedures.

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As for Ransom’s future with the restaurant, she says she has no love for Popeye’s.

“I don’t want my job back because that’s the rudest company I ever worked for,” she said, adding that she didn’t think people should eat there.

The Popeye’s on Showcase Boulevard received a score of 98 on a recent inspection by the Shelby County health department.

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