El Pollo Loco are two independent restaurant chains that are controlled by different companies, El Pollo Loco, Inc. and El Pollo Loco, S.A. de C.V. Both companies specialize in Mexican-style grilled chicken and were founded by Juan Francisco Ochoa, but both occupy non-overlapping global territories.
Video El Pollo Loco
United States
El Pollo Loco, Inc. is a restaurant chain based in the United States, specializing in Mexican-style grilled chicken. Restaurant service consists of: dine-in, take-out, with some locations offering drive through options. The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California and operates over 400 (as of March 2014) company-owned and franchised restaurants in the Southwestern United States. "El Pollo Loco" is Spanish for "The Crazy Chicken".
Fare
El Pollo Loco primarily prepares Mexican chicken entrees. The company describes its chicken as "citrus-marinated and fire-grilled." The American company also offer Mexican-style food such as tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and quesadillas.
In a bid to compete with companies such 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 is a big departure from its previous marketing campaigns that tout their fired-grilled chicken as a healthy 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 first U.S. restaurant opened in Los Angeles, California at 503 Alvarado Street, near Sixth Street. The first American location was only 1,500-square-feet 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. 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 were 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.
American Securities Capital Partners acquired the 274-location El Pollo Loco in 1999 for $114 Million and sold it to Trimaran Capital Partners in 2005 for $400 Million with 328 locations.
In January 2007, El Pollo Loco was featured on NBC TV's hit show The Apprentice: Los Angeles where contestants competed by creating and selling versions of El Pollo Loco's Pollo Bowl. El Pollo Loco was recognized by the World Franchising Network as a Top Franchise for Hispanics in 2010.
New locations were first open by franchisees in the states of Utah and Oregon in 2008. The 400th location was opened in Chelsea, Massachusetts in May 2008.
In July 2014, El Loco Pollo (NASDAQ: LOCO) became a publicly traded company on NASDAQ.
Temporary expansion eastward
Throughout its history, El Pollo Loco, Inc., tried at various times to expand beyond its core territories of California and the American Southwest, but all of these attempts were so far not very successful.
In 1987, then owner TW Services began to open restaurants in the Orlando area, starting in Winter Park, Florida. 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 within the United States
In the U.S., the El Pollo Loco chain operates over 400 company-owned and franchised restaurants in Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Texas, and California. 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. By 1997, EPL, Inc., had franchises located in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. The franchise licenses for both Malaysia and Singapore has since lapsed. 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 terminated.
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.
Maps El Pollo Loco
Mexico
The El Pollo Loco locations in Mexico are not affiliated with or operated by the Costa Mesa, California-based El Pollo Loco, Inc. but are operated by Mexico-based El Pollo Loco, S.A. de C.V., which is still owned by founder Juan Francisco Ochoa and his family. The company specializes in selling Sinaloa-style marinaded grilled chicken.
In Mexico, El Pollo Loco, S.A. de C.V., operates as El Pollo Loco in over 50 locations within Mexico City and the states of Coahuila, Nuevo León, Michoacán, Sinaloa, and Tamaulipas, of which 28 of those being located in Nuevo León.
History of the Mexican chain
Ochoa opened his first location in Guasave in the state of Sinaloa on January 6, 1974 at a small roadside location containing ten tables and with a starting working capital of 15 thousand pesos. His wife Flérida created a fruit-based marinade which was used to coat the chicken for several hours prior to grilling. After a few hours of operations on their first day, they sold out all 43 chickens.
Three years later, Ochoa's brother Jaime quit his job and opened the company's second location in San Luis Potosi. This was quickly followed by other locations that were opened and operated by Ochoa's other brothers and sisters in Guadalajara, Morelia, Monterrey, and Saltillo.
By the end of 1979, Ochoa had 85 restaurants in 20 cities throughout Northern Mexico with many of the locations operated by family members or close friends. At that time, Ochoa thought about expanding north of the borders into areas of the United States that he had previously visited. In 1980, Ochoa opened his first U.S. location on Alvarado Street in Los Angeles, an area which had a high concentration of immigrants from Sinaloa.
The company rapidly expanded on both sides of the international border during the early 1980s. However a number of bad decisions caused by a non-related manager caused the company to accumulate $3 million in debts and created a cash flow problem that forced Ochoa to sell his properties outside Mexico to help cover those debts.
In September 1983, Ochoa sold the 19 U.S. locations, all of which were located in Southern California, to Denny's for either $12.6 million or $11.3 million. At the time of the sale, Ochoa had retained 92 locations within Mexico. As part of the agreement, Denny's promised to assist Ochoa in opening new locations in the parts of Mexico that Ochoa's company did not then occupy. In 2004, the Mexican company filed suit in U.S. Federal Court against the American company for failure to fulfill the joint expansion agreement. After three years of litigation, the Court ruled against the American company and ordered the American company to pay $22 million in damages and to return the ownership of the "El Pollo Loco" trademark and intellectual property within Mexico back to the Mexican company.
As a result of the debt debacle created during the early 1980s by a non-family manager, the number of locations has since shrunk to approximately 40 locations, all of which are managed and operated by family members.
After the sale of the American locations in 1983, Ochoa restricted his business activities to Mexico. However, the lure of new business activities north of the Rio Grande was too hard to resist and Ochoa opened his new business, called Taco Palenque, in Laredo, Texas in 1987.
Menu
Unlike its American counterpart, the Mexican chain has kept its menu simple and focused on the grilled chicken. Deboned chicken or other animal protein like shrimp or carne asada are not available. Standard Mexican-American fare such as tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and quesadillas are also not available. The chain does offer french fries (Papas a la Francesa), cole slaw (Ensalada de Col), macaroni salad (Ensalada de Coditos), and charro beans to go with the pieces of grilled chicken.
Controversies
In January 2016, the Secretaría de Salud de Nuevo León, the Health Ministry for the Mexican state of Nuevo León, closed several franchised locations of El Pollo Loco for several health code violations. At least one of the locations was owned by Mexican politician Marco González who claimed that the closures were politically motivated.
See also
- List of fast-food chicken restaurants
References
External links
- Official website for American company
- Official website for Mexican company
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