Koo Koo Roo was an American fast casual restaurant chain specializing in charbroiled chicken founded in 1988 by Los Angeles-based restaurateurs Mike and Ray Badalian. The name "Koo Koo Roo" was an onomatopoeic reference to the crow of a rooster. After a series of expansions and ownership changes, in which Koo Koo Roo struggled for profitability throughout the 1990s, the last location in Santa Monica, California, closed in 2014.
In 2021, Luby's Restaurants, Inc. sold the Koo Koo Roo brand to an independent third party, owned and controlled by Daniel Farasat.
History
The Badalian brothers originally ran two locations in Los Angeles, one in Koreatown and the other on Beverly Boulevard close to the Beverly Center. The brothers opened their first restaurant in 1988 on west Sixth Street near Normandie Avenue in Los Angeles. The restaurant served skinless chicken that was marinated in vegetable juices and char-broiled over open flames and served with a fold-able Middle Eastern inspired flatbread that they called "Koo Koo Roo bread." The only sides available were a Middle Eastern cucumber and onion salad, an eggplant salad, and a mixture of pinto and Northern beans. The only dessert initially available was frozen yogurt. Everything on the initial menu had relative low calories when compared to offerings at other chicken restaurants.
On the evening of, Kenneth Berg, a retired real estate broker from New York, stopped at the Beverly Boulevard location to get dinner, particularly a meal for him to take home while he watched the 62nd Academy Awards.