Bojangles isn't coming to Oklahoma after all, and why is a mystery

Richard Mize, Oklahoman
·2 min read
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In December 2019, Bojangles and Love's announced a partnership that would have had Bojangles restaurants inside Love's Travel Stops, including in Oklahoma, but plans changed. Oklahomans will have to get their chicken and biscuits on the road, out of state.
In December 2019, Bojangles and Love's announced a partnership that would have had Bojangles restaurants inside Love's Travel Stops, including in Oklahoma, but plans changed. Oklahomans will have to get their chicken and biscuits on the road, out of state.

Bojangles fried chicken is flying and its biscuits rising, just not in Oklahoma after all.

Bojangles and Oklahoma City-based Love's announced a national franchise agreement three years ago that would have put the chicken-and-biscuit joints inside 40 Love's Travel Stops, including some Love's locations in Oklahoma.

Within a year, Love's had opened two Bojangles, one in Blythevile, Arkansas, and one in Marion, Illinois, with plans for more over the next decade. Now Love's is home to nearly a dozen Bojangles, in the Deep South and southern Illinois.

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"Bojangles provides us with a unique food option that has a lot of our customers chomping at the bit to try," said Joe Cotton, Love's vice president of restaurant services, said in November 2020.

It turns out that Oklahomans will have to chomp on Bojangles fare on the road, because the chain isn't coming to the Sooner State. The closest restaurants are in Arkansas and Louisiana.

"There aren’t currently plans to add Bojangles in Oklahoma," Love's Caitlin Jensen said.

Did COVID wreck the plan, as it did so much else? Or cause Love's and Bojangles to rewrite it? The agreement was announced just days before news of a novel coronavirus hit and weeks before 2020 business shutdowns started taking out restaurants and other retailers.

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Unknown. Jensen had no further information from Love's, and Bojangles did not return a jingle to its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Whatever trouble the two privately held companies may have had because of COVID and related issues, they shook it off.

Bojangles' fortunes have been rising like one of its buttermilk biscuits − it's even outgrown its corporate headquarters.

Love's recently opened its 600th store, in Perry, which has an Arby's. It's Love's 81st location in its home state.

"The consequential milestone finds its place in history in the same state that helped ignite the family-owned company nearly 60 years ago with its first location in Watonga, Oklahoma," Love's said.

Nearly a dozen Love's have Bojangles. Love's locations also have quick-service restaurants ranging from Burger King, Godfather's Pizza, Sonic, Subway, Taco Bell, Wendy's and others.

The Love's Travel Stop in Bliss, Idaho, which opened last year is the chain's biggest one ever at 21,000 square feet.
The Love's Travel Stop in Bliss, Idaho, which opened last year is the chain's biggest one ever at 21,000 square feet.

Senior Business Writer Richard Mize has covered housing, construction, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com since 1999. Contact him at rmize@oklahoman.com. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Real Estate with Richard Mize.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Bojangles deal with Oklahoma-based Love's Travel Stops skips Oklahoma