El Pollo Loco
American and Mexican fast food restaurant chains / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
El Pollo Loco (Spanish for "The Crazy Chicken") is the name of two independent restaurant chains that specialize in Mexican-style grilled chicken. Both were founded by Juan Francisco Ochoa.[1] He established the first El Pollo Loco restaurant in Guasave, Sinaloa, Mexico in 1974.[2][3][4] Ochoa then expanded his chain into the United States in 1980.[5][6] He later sold his U.S. restaurants in 1983 while keeping the ones in Mexico.[7] The two companies have since occupied non-overlapping global territories and have offered different fare.
- El Pollo Loco (Mexico) is the chain still owned by Ochoa's family and operates over 50 (as of 2017[update]) locations within Mexico.[8]
- El Pollo Loco (United States) operates about 500 (as of 2019[update]) company-owned and franchised restaurants primarily in the Southwestern United States.[9] Since 2014, the U.S.-based company has been publicly traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the ticker LOCO.[10]