Pollo Tropical - Wikipedia

Pollo Tropical

• Article
• Talk

• Language
• Watch
• Edit

Pollo Tropical (Spanish for "Tropical Chicken") is a South Florida-based restaurant chain and franchise specializing in food inspired by Latin-Caribbean, particularly Cuban, and Floribbean cuisines.[1] Founded in 1988, the chain has its headquarters in Miami-Dade County, Florida.[2] It is best known for marinated and grilled chicken and various sides including black beans and rice, mojo roast pork and more.[3]

Pollo Tropical

Pollo Tropical Express Restaurant 2022
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Restaurants
Genre	Latin American, Caribbean, and Floribbean cuisine
Founded	1988; 37 years ago (1988) (original) (Miami, Florida)
Founder	Larry & Stuart Harris
Headquarters	Miami-Dade County, Florida
Number of locations	125 (FL) (2019) 17 (PR) (2022)
Key people	Dirk Montgomery (CEO)
Products	Mojo grilled chicken, black beans, yellow rice, yuca and other Latin-style dishes.
Revenue	363,473,000 United States dollar (2019)
Number of employees	5,600 (2017) [1]
Parent	Cajun Operating
Website	pollotropical.com

Contents

• 1 History
• 2 Food concepts
• 3 Challenges in the United States
• 4 See also
• 5 References
• 6 External links

History

edit

 

Pollo Tropical was founded in 1988 by two brothers from Miami, Larry and Stuart Harris. The chicken recipe was the result of Larry's studying cookbooks on Latin American cuisine and conducting experiments on his backyard grill to perfect the marinade. From the outset, the restaurant's strategy was to grill the marinated chicken in the customers' view. There were no prepackaged, precooked menu items and no microwave ovens. By 1993, the company had eight stores and went public. It opened 19 locations in one year including those in New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Tampa. Most of the new locations closed within a year after opening. In 1998, Pollo Tropical was sold to Carrols Restaurant Group, which was and is Burger King's largest United States franchisee.[4] After a period of rapid expansion, there were sixty-nine company-owned locations and numerous franchisees in the Latin American and Caribbean regions.[1]

In 1995, the first Pollo Tropical in Puerto Rico opened in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

Pollo Tropical is now a subsidiary of Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc., which was spun-off from Carrols Restaurant Group in 2012.[5] Fiesta owns, operates and franchises the Pollo Tropical restaurant brand.[6] Its headquarters have been located in Doral since 2017. The company currently owns and operates more than 140 locations throughout Florida, plus five licensed restaurants on college campuses and 32 franchised locations throughout the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and Puerto Rico.[1][5][7]

Food concepts

edit

In addition to its fire-grilled chicken, the restaurant provides other regional foods such as Mojo Roast Pork, rice, beans, Cheesy Yuca Bites and Plantains.[1] In 2018 the company began offering fried chicken in addition to their traditional fire-grilled recipe.

Challenges in the United States

edit

 

After a decline in sales, Fiesta began closing its Texas restaurants, including Pollo Tropical locations in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin, in the second quarter of 2017. The Texas restaurants were shuttered as part of closings of 30 stores, including locations in Georgia and Tennessee.[8][9] This was part of a trend announced earlier in 2017, as the company moved to slow development, having grown "too far, too fast."[10] Instead of trying to open 30 new stores, the company planned to open 8 to 10, all in Florida, which is its core market. While its grilled chicken and other offerings are seen as healthy alternatives to fried chicken, hamburgers and french fries, the style and taste does not immediately draw customers outside Florida, and so requires some explanation to lure new customers in other markets.[1]

See also

edit

• Chicken restaurant
• List of chicken restaurants

Portals:

•   Florida
•   Companies
•   Food

References

edit

1. ^ a b c d e f "Can Pollo Tropical get its mojo back? Chicken chain fights to fly high again", Miami Herald, January 16, 2017, retrieved October 31, 2017
2. ^ "Terms of use". Pollo Tropical. Retrieved November 26, 2025. Pollo Tropical Corporate Office and Headquarters, 7255 Corporate Center Drive, Suite C, Miami, FL 33126
3. ^ Mandy Baca (2013). The Sizzling History of Miami Cuisine: Cortaditos, Stone Crabs and Empanadas. Arcadia Publishing. p. 104. ISBN 9781614239291. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
4. ^ Bloomberg News (June 6, 1998), "COMPANY NEWS; LARGEST BURGER KING FRANCHISEE TO BUY POLLO TROPICAL", New York Times, New York, New York, retrieved November 6, 2017
5. ^ a b Form 10-K: Fiesta Restaurant Group (PDF). 2016. p. 1. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
6. ^ John Brown (2014). Dining Roulette: The Truth about Restaurants from the Inside Out. Wheatmark, Inc. p. 118. ISBN 9781627871877. Retrieved October 31, 2017.
7. ^ "Pollo Tropical", USF Dining Services, archived from the original on November 7, 2017, retrieved October 31, 2017
8. ^ Gwendolyn Knapp (April 25, 2017), "Pollo Tropical Closes Numerous Texas Locations", Houston Press, Houston, Texas, retrieved October 31, 2017
9. ^ Nancy De Gennaro (April 26, 2017), "Pollo Tropical closed all Tennessee locations Monday", Tennessean, retrieved October 31, 2017
10. ^ Ron Ruggless (February 28, 2017), "Fiesta to Slow Pollo Tropical Development", Nation's Restaurant News, retrieved October 31, 2017

External links

edit   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pollo Tropical.

• Official website

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pollo_Tropical&oldid=1325012728"