El Pollo Loco
575 Anton Blvd, Ste 1100, Costa Mesa, CA 95626
Approximately 90-95% of the El Pollo Loco restaurant locations are linked in the Atlas Research Platform.
Enterprise Snapshot
(US & CAN)
Public profile metrics.
Cuisines
2 of 2 shownStates & Provinces
3 of 10 shownSummary
El Pollo Loco traces its roots to founder Pancho Ochoa’s fire-grilled chicken restaurants in Mexico during the 1970s. The first U.S. restaurant opened in Los Angeles in 1980, and the company is now headquartered in Costa Mesa, California. El Pollo Loco manages a single restaurant concept built around citrus-marinated, flame-grilled chicken and Mexican-inspired meals. About two-thirds of its restaurants are franchised, with the remainder company operated. The system extends across several U.S. states. Restaurants operate as fast casual concepts serving lunch and dinner. Cuisines include Chicken and Mexican/Latin. A typical location has about 60 seats and occupies approximately 2,500 square feet, with drive-through, freestanding and other formats varying by market. El Pollo Loco is a public company (NASDAQ: LOCO).
El Pollo Loco Growth History
El Pollo Loco Vector Profile
RestaurantData’s selected archived development trail for El Pollo Loco begins with a December 1999 report in San Antonio, Texas. The reports document a multi-state history, with supporting opening-year research adding to later records and extending the selected view through 2026.
For sales teams and investors, these historical windows help compare current development with earlier activity and place individual locations within the brand’s longer expansion history.
Four selected historical windows
- 2012–2014
Early development
10+ opening signals5+ states with signals
- 2016–2018
Multi-state activity
50+ opening signals5+ states with signals
- 2020–2022
Concentrated development
20+ opening signals5+ states with signals
- 2024–2026
Recent arc in development
20+ opening signals5+ states with signals
El Pollo Loco: development arc
Selected location history and opening signals, 1998–2026.
Swipe or scroll the chart to view all years.
Vector readout: The 2012–2014 window contains 10+ selected signals across 5+ states. The 2020–2022 window adds 20+ across 5+ states. The 2024–2026 combined history contains 20+ selected signals across 5+ states under broader research coverage, with a partial 2026 segment.
The 2024–2026 window has a broader source mix than the earlier house-report windows. The 2026 segment is partial. Development report years may precede the opening year recorded for a restaurant.
RestaurantData source trail: Archived house reports provide the solid trail through 2018. From 2019 on, the combined records include later house reports and researched opening years, so house reports continue within the dotted segment. A development report year and an opening year can differ for the same location.
Restaurant location examples along the expansion arc
- 2001Development report year
El Pollo Loco
2401 Decatur Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89102 - 2010Development report year
El Pollo Loco
13421 Newport Ave
Tustin, CA 92780-3716
Orange County - 2014Development report year
El Pollo Loco
1212 Howe Ave
Sacramento, CA 95825-3400
Sacramento County - 2020Development report year
El Pollo Loco
4755 S Landing Way
Tucson, AZ 85712
Pima County - 2023Researched opening year
El Pollo Loco
9550 W Skye Canyon Park Dr
Las Vegas, NV 89166
Clark County - 2026Development report year
El Pollo Loco
3106 Forest Ln
Dallas, TX 75229
Contact RestaurantData for full location and development histories.
Source: RestaurantData archived U.S. development reports and supporting restaurant-location research. Headquarters, franchisee offices, unrelated namesakes, renovations, transfers and unresolved addresses are excluded. Signal counts of 10 or more are rounded down to tens; counts from 5 to 9 use that range. State bands of 5 or more are rounded down to multiples of 5. Smaller counts are shown directly.
The latest included dated evidence is 2026. The 2026 segment is partial. Development reports may describe planned restaurants. The six examples use the date basis shown on each card. A report year is not necessarily an opening year, and location verification dates are not used as opening dates. Historical locations may have closed.
The solid segment uses archived house report dates through 2018. Combined records, from 2019 on, add researched opening years and continuing house reports. Markers identify years with selected dated evidence; connecting lines are illustrative between those years. Coverage varies across jurisdictions and years. These selections do not represent complete opening totals, current operating units or net growth. Gaps alone do not establish a pause or contraction.
Last updated November 2026.
Read the Restaurant Vector™ overview for the research method and source definitions.
Historical reference: El Pollo Loco in the Top 300 Restaurant Concepts 2018 report on RestaurantChains.net.
For additional historical addresses and source details, see the El Pollo Loco location archive on RestaurantChains.net.
What the Complete Profile Includes
The public profile introduces the enterprise. Subscribers can explore the connected records behind it.
Ownership & Concepts
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Contacts & Leadership
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Locations & Markets
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How This Profile Is Built
RestaurantData combines corporate disclosures, franchise documentation, public filings, company websites, location research, and proprietary verification. Parent-level figures may aggregate linked concepts. Certain sales and location totals are presented as estimates when companies do not publish a single current figure.
About This Enterprise Profile
The Restaurant Enterprise Index is RestaurantData’s research framework for organizing major restaurant enterprises, including franchisors, franchisees, multi-concept operators, and parent organizations.
Certain sales and location totals are presented as estimates when companies do not publish single current figures.
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The Restaurant Enterprise Index focuses primarily on companies with a substantial role in restaurant operations. Investment firms, financial sponsors, and other ownership partners are generally not included unless they also play a meaningful operating role; an otherwise qualifying entity may also be omitted when sufficient reliable information is unavailable.
The ownership hierarchy follows the entity structure from the bottom up, showing the profiled entity in relation to its parent organizations, including its ultimate parent. When the entity owns or operates concepts beneath it, up to three are displayed.
Verify Our Data Methodology
- Foundation: Active state business registries form the primary backbone of every record.
- Sources: Publicly available filings throughout, including public Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDDs).
- Integrity: Zero proprietary third-party databases utilized.
- Verification: Entity/concept records are validated at the source by our in-house research team.
Leveraging Human-Verified Connections
- Collection: Filings and public records are gathered through intake procedures.
- Verification: In-house researchers review every record before it enters the database.
- Ownership Chain: Where relationships can be established, researchers work upward from a concept headquarters or single concept through parent, grandparent, and ultimate parent, resolving operators into one connected structure.
Maintaining the Longitudinal Record
- Duration: Continuous tracking since 1997. Twenty-nine years of unit-level history.
- Method: Same methodology applied across the full period so year-over-year comparisons hold.
- Change Tracking: Openings, closures, ownership transfers, and operator consolidation are recorded as they occur, not backfilled.
- Result: Expansion and contraction trends visible over decades, not snapshots.
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