MONEY ON THE MENU
Latin-style food biz makes $1 million in just 36 days.
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| Dionisio Gutierrez (pictured) is taking the Pollo Campero fast-food franchise to tremendous heights. The company is expanding at leaps and bounds and doing well in the markets served. Latin influenced menu choices is an idea whose time has come, says the franchisor. The market grows every year and is building great momentum among non-Hispanics. The company is now expanding into the international arena and the first location is due to open this year in Shanghai with 100 franchises planned in Indonesia. |
Looking for a new food franchise to start? Something refreshing with a new menu? Consider Pollo Campero. Pollo Campero is taking the United States by storm. The company prides itself on quality and hospitality. The first Pollo Campero restaurant was founded by Dionisio Gutierrez and his father, Don Juan Bautista Gutierrez, in Guatemala, more than 35 years ago. Today, there are Pollo Campero restaurants in eight countries including: Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and the United States. Pollo Campero is now one of the largest family-style restaurant chains in Latin America, with more than 200 locations.
Pollo Campero made the decision to expand into the United States market after selling more than 3 million “to go” orders to people in airports traveling from Central America. These travelers were delivering orders of Pollo Campero’s delicious fried chicken to their United States-based friends and relatives craving a taste of home. The company has a franchise agreement with Levy Family Partners to ramp up expansion into key U.S. markets in response to demand for the company’s flavor-bursting brand of chicken and personal service with a Latin twist.
Pollo Campero successfully introduced its first U.S. restaurant in April 2002. The first store, in Los Angeles, broke existing U.S. sales records for quick service restaurants by achieving $1 million in sales in its first 47 days of operation, serving more than 30,000 orders within the first week. The company quickly followed the success of its first store by opening nine additional Los Angeles locations in the past three years.
The first Houston store broke the $1 million sales mark in just 58 days, serving over 28,000 orders within the first week. The company now operates three stores in the Houston market. In October 2003, the company entered the Wash-ington, D.C. market, beating its own previous U.S. sales record by breaking the $1 million sales mark in only 36 days of operation, and serving nearly 40,000 orders within the first week. The two suburban Washington, D.C. stores continue to see lines of customers waiting for a taste of the fried chicken they have come to crave.