El Pollo Loco

Fare

El Pollo Loco prepares primarily Mexican chicken entrees. The company describes its chicken as "citrus-marinated and fire-grilled." The American company also offers Mexican-style food, such as tacos, burritos, tostada salads, chicken bowls, snacks, salsas, sides, and quesadillas.

In a bid to compete with such companies as KFC and Chick-fil-A, El Pollo Loco experimented with offering deep-fried chicken in the form of breaded chicken tenders at selected locations in the United States for a limited time during the Fall 2016. This experiment was a big departure from its previous marketing campaigns that tout their fire-grilled chicken as a healthful alternative to fried chicken.

History

Juan Francisco Ochoa started the restaurant in Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico, in 1975.

By 1979, the chain had expanded throughout northern Mexico. On December 8, 1980, Ochoa opened his first U.S. restaurant in Los Angeles, California, at 503 South Alvarado Street, near west Sixth Street. The first American location was only 1,500 square feet (140 m2) and it grossed more than $125,000 per month during its first year of operation. The initial menu was very simple: a choice of a half or whole chicken with a packet of warm tortillas and a cup of salsa. A second location was opened in Santa Ana in the fall of 1981.

In 1983, the 19 American restaurants in the chain were acquired by Denny's with an agreement that the Ochoa family would continue to operate the restaurants in Mexico under the corporate name El Pollo Loco, S.A. de C.V. where it continues to operate. After 18 months of new ownership, the American owned El Loco Pollo, Inc. had increased the number of locations in Southern California from 19 to 29 while adding 6 locations in distant Houston, Texas, with almost all of the new locations being franchise operations.

Four years later the 70-unit El Pollo Loco was acquired by TW Services when TW Services purchased El Pollo Loco's then parent Denny's Inc. in 1987 for $218 million in cash.

In May 1990, El Pollo Loco opened its 200th restaurant. That new restaurant was located in Yorba Linda, California. During the early 1990s the company experimented with many different concepts to increase marketshare in the competitive Southern Californian fast food industry. In 1994 the company test marketed at a select few locations: a side-dish bar, salsa bar, and barbecue at some locations, while other locations tried selling french fries or ice cream. Only salsa bars survived the test and were introduced chainwide the following year. The company also tested home delivery and catering in 1995.

In August 1995, El Pollo Loco earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for building the world's largest burrito in Anaheim, California. The burrito was 3,112 feet (949 m) long and weighed two tons.

Temporary expansion eastward

Throughout its history, El Pollo Loco tried at various times to expand beyond its core territories of California and the American Southwest, but the attempts were not very successful.

In 1987, then owner TW Services began to open restaurants in the Orlando, Florida area, starting in Winter Park. Five restaurants were eventually built but all five were forced to close in 1991.

A second expansion attempt, mainly though franchises, was started in 2006 under then-owner Trimaran Capital Partners. All of these locations were closed within six years.

During this time, El Pollo Loco or its franchisees briefly operated several restaurants in metro Atlanta, and Boston, New Jersey, and in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia; these closed by 2011. The chain's franchised restaurants in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area also closed in 2011. An El Pollo Loco in the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut closed in spring 2012. The last of four Chicago area stores closed at the end of 2012.

Locations in the United States

In the U.S., El Pollo Loco operated over 400 company-owned and franchised restaurants in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, Utah, and Louisiana in 2017. In 2012, El Pollo Loco restaurants went through a major makeover.

Locations outside North America

Under Denny's and its successors, El Pollo Loco, Inc., had sold franchise licenses to operators based in East Asia.

In 1987, TW Services made a deal with the major Japanese trading company Mitsui & Co. to open 484 restaurants across Japan, at the same time that Taco Time and Taco Bell were opening their first locations in the country. The first of these opened in Tokyo in 1988. All of the Japanese locations closed by 1994.

By 1997, EPL, Inc., had franchises located in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. The franchise licenses for both Malaysia and Singapore has since lapsed.

Philippines

The first location in the Philippines was opened at the SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City in 1991. In July 2016, the Delgado family, owners of the El Pollo Loco franchise in the Philippines, filed a lawsuit against EPL, Inc. in the Regional Trial Court so it could retain the El Pollo Loco trademark in that country after the franchise contract had been terminated. In the following year, The Bistro Group acquired the brand with its two locations, in the SM Megamall and in the SM Mall of Asia, in July 2017.

By June 2023, El Pollo Loco Philippines, as a subsidiary of The Bistro Group, had ten locations within the Manila metropolitan area. Unlike its legally-unrelated Mexican and American counterparts, the Filipino company also offers barbecue pork ribs, macaroni salad, dessert crepes, flan, beer, rice bowls (beef, pork, or chicken), and endless Spanish rice. One reviewer wrote that the menu has been modified to satisfy the Filipino palate and meals run in the 300-500 Philippines peso range. Filipino-style spaghetti was added to the menu in February 2025 and unlimited margaritas for a fixed fee was added to the menu in April 2025.

As of January 2025, the Bistro Group had 11 El Pollo Loco branches in the Manila Metro area, all of which appear to be located in shopping malls.

Charity partners

The brand created Fire-Grilled Fundraisers, an initiative for nonprofit organizations to raise funds for their cause while dining at the restaurant. They also created El Pollo Loco Charities, a nonprofit 501(c) charity to provide meals to underprivileged families, in 2005.

In 2019, the brand launched Pollo with Purpose, a company-wide food donation program, in partnership with Food Donation Connection. The program's stated goal was to donate 500,000 pounds of food annually.