A recent column about Jimmie Thompson’s entrepreneurial ventures sparked thoughts about another notable Alexandria entrepreneur back in the day – Al Urbina.
Urbina, who died at age 69 in 2007, added some spice to this city in several different ways – from J.R.’s Corral to the Virgin Isle – but he is perhaps most remembered as Uncle Albert, the owner of Uncle Albert’s Chicken Empire that enjoyed its heyday in the 1970s.
At one time he had more than 20 chicken restaurants across Louisiana and into Texas.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Urbina was born in Port Arthur, Texas in 1938. His son, Duane, an Alexandria native, said his dad got his start in the fast-food business flipping burgers at Pennington’s Hamburgers in Port Arthur, eventually becoming the store manager.
About the time Al was thinking he’d like to start his own fast-food business, he got an offer to start a fast food fried chicken place in Lafayette, and he did. He started Fat Albert’s Fried Chicken and expanded to three restaurants there, but he wanted to grow the franchise more. He got an offer to do so in Alexandria, and he opened his first store on Lee Street, with a name change to Uncle Albert’s Fried Chicken.
Before long, he added restaurants on MacArthur Drive and Main Street in Pineville, and in 1974 he ran an ad in the Town Talk newspaper thanking “thousands of people” who came to the three restaurants to taste the “original Uncle Albert’s Fried Chicken.” As a show of his appreciation, he offered for two days only “the greatest chicken special ever” – 8 pieces with family size fried chicken (reg. $3.94) for only $1.99.
It was through Al’s friendship with Sal Sunseri, now the vice president of a New Orleans oyster company, that he met Al Copeland, the founder of Popeye’s Fried Chicken. His daughter, Danette Cruz, said her father advised Copeland when he started his successful chicken franchise.
Her mother and grandmother, said Danette, made the first dirty rice for Copeland’s new store. “Daddy got him the recipe for his dirty rice.”
A lifetime love of sports contributed to his deciding to organize a fundraiser in the late 1970s to help the Alexandria Senior High football team get a much-needed weight room.
“He read where the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Dallas Cowboys (two titans of the NFL at the time) would play basketball games in the offseason back then to raise money for various causes,” said Duane, “and he said, ‘I’m going to get them to come here.’”
Joe Moreau, who was an assistant football coach at ASH at the time, remembers the game and that its proceeds helped head coach Butch Stoker build the weight room. Also, Al developed a friendship with some Cowboys like Tony Dorsett, Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Billy Joe Dupree and others.
“They told him they wanted to start a chicken franchise in Dallas,” Duane said, “and he told them he’d start one up for them and they would get all the proceeds in exchange for their endorsing his chicken.”
Running a chicken franchise wasn’t enough for Al, though.
“Dad was a dreamer,” said Duane, who has some acclaim himself as a legendary powerlifting coach (and principal) at ASH. “He always wanted to explore other avenues.”
He opened a skating rink at the Southgate Mall, then he opened a hockey rink and an arcade.
“When the movie Urban Cowboy came out,” said Duane, “he said, ‘I’m going to do that.’ He went to Gilley’s and saw the mechanical bull and said he’s going to open that kind of bar. He called it “J.R.’s Corral.”
When he opened the bar, Al donned a cowboy hat and boots and rode “Old Blue,” the mechanical bull. Duane was the operator of the bull and a bouncer. He also joined his father as a part-owner of the place along with Danny White, Ronnie Bryant and Herschel Lonidier.
It was “the newest, hottest honky-tonk in town” in September of 1980, according to the Town Talk, but by late November, Al sold it and started a new club called Houston City Limits, which suffered fire damage and flared out.
Uncle Albert, after dishing out plenty breasts and legs in the chicken business, opened a tropical swim-up bar called Virgin Isle in September of 1982. It had a tanning room and was on the corner of Jackson Street Extension and Wimbledon Boulevard. The menu included po-boys and sandwiches. A drink cost $1 and a beer sold for 75 cents.
It didn’t last long but then came Al’s teen club with a lighted dance floor in 1983 called Hangar 18 on Jackson Street Extension – not an appropriate neighborhood for such a club. Thus, it didn’t last long, either.
“Dad liked to help people out,” said Danette, “and he wanted to put Alexandria on the map. If something didn’t work, he’d turn and try something else. He always wanted to make it interesting for the youth. From his youth, as a minority (of Mexican descent), he was always trying to prove himself.
“For us (his children), the biggest legacy he probably left was his work ethic,” said Danette, who owns a well-established hair salon in Alexandria. She and her five siblings have had much success in a variety of businesses.
Someone once said, “If you haven’t been failing, you haven’t been trying.” Albert Urbina’s other legacy is that he never stopped trying to amp up life in Alexandria, despite the sometimes-quick turnover in business.
We could use someone now with such energy and creativity.