Pioneer Chicken

This is an excerpt from the The Last Pioneer: A savage journey to the heart of the greasy-as-hell, California fast-food dream. “By 1987, Pioneer was going bankrupt, and in 1993, the parent company for Popeyes, a national fried chicken chain that by all accounts was nothing like Pioneer, purchased the ailing company, converting most of the remaining Pioneers into Popeyes. The loss was mourned a bit by the press and then life went on, but part of the city’s fast-food identity was lost. In a common, ambient way, Pioneer Chicken was central to the Los Angeles experience, the myth history of the town. It was everywhere, like orange street lights or jacaranda trees, a fixture of the landscape. And then, suddenly, it wasn’t… read the full article >