After decades of success in their Arlington, Virginia location, the family-owned grilled chicken restaurant business El Pollo Rico acquired a small parcel in Prince William County to develop a second restaurant. Because the site was not zoned for restaurant use, it was necessary to develop concept plans and work closely together with the County to seek approval for the proposed use.

Through careful design, a compact and highly efficient site organization was crafted with a fully developed site plan that included parking, landscaped buffers, a dining patio, and a freestanding restaurant building.  The small size of the parcel limited the building to only 6,000 sqft.

The El Pollo Rico concept is a limited menu featuring wood-grilled rotisserie chicken. A focus of the interior layout is two brick wood-burning roasting rotisseries that can handle 40 chickens each. Many sustainable design strategies were woven into the design, including an energy-efficient recovery exhaust hood, demand water heaters, a high-performance building envelope, and natural materials.