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A pure exchange between a customer and an employee at a Popeyes drive-thru in Kenner, Louisiana has gone viral over the last few days, and it’s easy to see why: the video of a customer placing an order at the Loyola Drive Popeyes’ drive-thru feels like one of those “only in New Orleans” moments (Kenner is a suburb on the west side of New Orleans). It was posted to Facebook by Aundra Woodfin on Tuesday, March 8, with the caption, “Whomever this lady is at this Popeyes on Loyola (in Kenner)...Thank you!”
The video, first reported on by Lafayatte, Louisiana radio station Hot 107.9, had been shared 15,000 times by Thursday afternoon.
Popeyes cashier Cynthia Carter, or “Miss Cynthia,” as she is known by customers, has gone viral before: She’s been singing orders at the Popeyes in Kenner for more than 30 years, and videos of her unique form of service have popped up on YouTube as far back as 2008. In 2014, Miss Cynthia was featured on the Meredith Vieira Show as well as a local news program; in 2018, she told a local news outlet she simply starting singing orders one day after a customer did so first. “And I’ve been singing ever since,” she sings.
In the recent video that went viral, Carter sings “Spicy or miiiild?” regarding the customer’s 3-piece chicken tender meal (spicy); she lilts, “And what sauce are you going to back that thing up to them Saints this year?” (barbecue); she nods to Big Freedia with a classic singsong “You already know”; and finally, she instructs the customer, in the most New Orleans way, to “Come on ‘round, honey dumplin’.”
In a time of continued uncertainty, the video, if anything, offers a few seconds of joy (and a reminder that, even when the drive-thru line takes 20 minutes and they get your order wrong, Popeyes remains undefeated in Louisiana). The video can be found — and watched on-repeat — on Facebook.
