El Pollo Loco, Inc., is a restaurant chain based in the United States, specializing in Mexican-style grilled chicken.

The company is headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, and operates about 500 (as of January 2019)[3] company-owned and franchised restaurants in the Southwestern United States.

[15] During the early 1990s the company experimented with many different concepts to increase marketshare in the competitive Southern Californian fast food industry.

[31] In August 2010, president and chief executive officer Steve Carley unexpectedly resigned to head Red Robin Gourmet Burgers.

[32] In January 2011, Steve Sather was officially named president and chief executive officer after serving since the previous August as acting CEO.

[35][36] In October 2016, the company announced that it had teamed up with a Louisiana-based franchisee who plans to build and open two units in Lafayette, Louisiana, sometime in 2018.

[37] In the following year, the Louisiana-based franchisee announced that construction of the first Lafayette was going to start in the upcoming month with an anticipated opening in the late spring of 2018.

[45] 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.

During this time, El Pollo Loco or its franchisees briefly operated several restaurants in metro Atlanta,[51] and Boston,[31][52] New Jersey,[53] and in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia;[54] these closed by 2011.

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.

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

[69] By June 2023, El Pollo Loco Philippines, as a subsidiary of The Bistro Group, had ten locations within the Manila metropolitan area.

[67] One reviewer wrote that the menu has been modified to satisfy the Filipino palate and meals run in the 3-500 Philippines peso range.

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