El Pollo Rico
Our Task
Restaurant Website Design Task
Restaurant Website Design for El Pollo Rico, a well-known Peruvian charcoal-broiled chicken restaurant brand serving customers in Arlington, Fairfax, Wheaton, and Woodbridge.
The Restaurant Website Design project needed to support one of the Washington, DC region’s most recognizable pollo a la brasa brands. El Pollo Rico needed a responsive WordPress website that could present locations, menus, ordering information, catering, jobs, history, press coverage, and brand information in a clear and easy-to-use format.
This was not only a visual website update. The Restaurant Website Design needed to support a larger brand system that included logo design, digital and print menus, exterior signage, staff shirts, website hosting, WordPress maintenance, managed SEO, scheduled backups, content updates, and webmaster support.
El Pollo Rico had a rare amount of third-party recognition for a local restaurant brand. The website needed to make that history and press visibility easier for customers, journalists, search engines, and new visitors to understand. The finished site needed to present the restaurant’s story, locations, food, menu structure, press archive, and local credibility without making the experience feel cluttered.
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design also needed to serve practical restaurant needs. Visitors needed quick access to locations, ordering links, catering information, menus, contact details, hours, jobs, and background information. The site had to work well for mobile users who might be hungry, nearby, and ready to order.
For blueunderground, the Restaurant Website Design task was to create a responsive, maintainable WordPress website that could support the El Pollo Rico brand across customer service, local search, media recognition, menu communication, and long-term website management.
- Create a Restaurant Website Design for El Pollo Rico.
- Design, program, host, and support a responsive WordPress website.
- Organize website content for locations, ordering, catering, menus, jobs, history, press, FAQs, and contact information.
- Support the website with logo design, print and digital menu design, exterior signage, and staff shirt design.
- Create a Restaurant WordPress Website Design that could support ongoing updates, SEO, press additions, menu changes, and website maintenance.
- Build a website structure that could support a large restaurant press archive with approximately 100 article references.
Services Provided
Restaurant Website Design Services Provided
blueunderground provided Restaurant Website Design services and related brand, WordPress, menu, signage, apparel, SEO, and webmaster support for El Pollo Rico, including responsive website design, WordPress development, hosting, maintenance, content organization, location-page support, and press-section organization.
Website Design, WordPress Development & Maintenance
- Restaurant Website Design for El Pollo Rico
- Restaurant WordPress Website Design for a regional Peruvian chicken restaurant brand
- Responsive WordPress website design for desktop, tablet, and mobile visitors
- WordPress website design and development
- Website programming using the WordPress Content Management System
- Website hosting support
- WordPress maintenance, including WordPress core updates, WordPress plugin updates, WordPress theme updates, managed SEO, scheduled website backups, content updates, and webmaster services
- Website content organization for locations, ordering, catering, menus, history, FAQs, jobs, press coverage, and contact information
- Location-page organization for Arlington, Fairfax, Wheaton, and Woodbridge
- Restaurant Website Design support for customer information, media coverage, local SEO, and restaurant brand credibility
- Restaurant WordPress Website Design support for ongoing updates, menu changes, press additions, and website management
Brand, Menu, Signage & Apparel Support
- Restaurant logo design for El Pollo Rico
- Restaurant menu design for El Pollo Rico
- Restaurant shirt design for El Pollo Rico
- Exterior signage support
- Brand identity coordination across website, logo, menu, signage, apparel, and digital communication
- Graphic design and image preparation using Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator
- Restaurant Website Design support for a consistent customer experience across web, menu, signage, apparel, and location information
This Restaurant Website Design project connected WordPress development, restaurant content strategy, menu communication, location information, press visibility, logo design, digital menu design, print design, signage, apparel, SEO, and long-term website maintenance into one coordinated digital platform for El Pollo Rico.
Restaurant Website Design Strategy
The Restaurant Website Design strategy focused on clarity, speed, local search, credibility, and brand continuity. El Pollo Rico is a restaurant people search for by name, by location, by food type, by reputation, and by word of mouth. The website needed to support all of those paths.
A strong Restaurant Website Design for El Pollo Rico had to serve hungry customers first. Visitors often need fast access to a location, menu, ordering option, phone number, address, or catering information. The website needed to make those practical actions easy while still giving the brand room to tell its larger story.
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design also needed to support El Pollo Rico’s unusual depth of press recognition. Many restaurant websites have a few reviews or media mentions. El Pollo Rico had decades of coverage, including local articles, regional features, national mentions, “cheap eats” references, Anthony Bourdain-related coverage, and neighborhood restaurant lists. The website needed a Press section that could organize that recognition into a useful long-term content resource.
The design strategy also needed to support multiple locations. El Pollo Rico serves customers through Arlington, Fairfax, Wheaton, and Woodbridge locations. Each location needed to be easy to find, and the broader brand needed to remain consistent across the site.
Restaurant websites also carry a brand experience. The site needed to feel clear, direct, flavorful, and practical. El Pollo Rico’s brand is built around charcoal-broiled chicken, loyal customers, family history, value, and a strong local reputation. The website needed to support that identity without making the design feel overly complex.
The Restaurant Website Design also needed to work as a maintenance platform. Menus, prices, locations, press references, online ordering links, jobs, catering information, and customer questions can change. WordPress gave El Pollo Rico a flexible foundation for ongoing website support and content updates.
For blueunderground, the strategy was to create a Restaurant Website Design that could support both immediate customer needs and long-term brand value. The site needed to help customers act quickly while also giving El Pollo Rico a stronger home for history, press, menus, and location content.
Restaurant Website Design Project Scope
The Restaurant Website Design project included website planning, responsive website design, WordPress development, website programming, hosting support, content organization, press-section development, location-page support, menu presentation, SEO support, and ongoing WordPress maintenance.
The project scope also included broader brand coordination. blueunderground supported El Pollo Rico with logo design, digital and print menu design, exterior signage, staff shirt design, and related graphic design work. The website needed to connect with those brand pieces so customers experienced one consistent El Pollo Rico identity.
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design also included a practical content architecture challenge. The website needed to make room for locations, ordering, catering, menus, about information, history, FAQs, press coverage, contact information, and jobs without making the navigation difficult.
The Press section was especially important. El Pollo Rico’s press archive included approximately 100 references across decades of coverage. The website needed a system that could make those articles easier to browse and preserve as part of the restaurant’s story.
The Restaurant Website Design also needed to support local SEO. Location content, consistent address information, restaurant service details, menu language, press references, and internal structure all help a restaurant website communicate relevance to customers and search engines.
Because customers often use restaurant websites on phones, responsive design was essential. A visitor might be looking for directions, ordering options, location information, or menu details from a mobile device. The website needed to be fast to understand and easy to use across screen sizes.
The scope also included long-term website care. WordPress maintenance, managed SEO, scheduled backups, content updates, plugin updates, theme updates, and webmaster services helped keep the website useful after launch. For a restaurant brand with multiple locations and ongoing content needs, maintenance is part of the project value.
The Restaurant Website Design scope shows how a restaurant website can serve many roles at once: customer service tool, ordering path, location finder, menu reference, press archive, brand platform, local SEO asset, and long-term communications hub.
Restaurant Website Design Results
The completed Restaurant Website Design gave El Pollo Rico a more organized and maintainable digital presence. The website supported the restaurant’s locations, menus, ordering information, catering, history, press coverage, jobs, FAQs, and contact information in one responsive WordPress platform.
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design also gave El Pollo Rico a stronger foundation for ongoing updates. Press items could be added, location information could be maintained, menu information could be revised, and customer-facing content could be adjusted without rebuilding the website from scratch.
The finished website helped connect El Pollo Rico’s long-standing reputation with a clearer digital structure. A restaurant with decades of local recognition needs a website that can preserve that credibility while helping current customers find what they need quickly.
The Restaurant Website Design also supported the larger brand system. The website worked with the logo, print and digital menus, signage, and staff shirts to create a more consistent presentation across digital and physical customer touchpoints.
As a portfolio example, this Restaurant Website Design demonstrates how blueunderground can support a restaurant brand with WordPress development, content organization, press strategy, menu design, local SEO, brand identity, and ongoing maintenance.
The website also helped organize El Pollo Rico’s media presence. The Press section made the restaurant’s history of coverage easier to browse, giving customers and journalists a central place to understand the depth of the brand’s recognition.
The Restaurant Website Design also shows why restaurant websites need to balance immediacy and depth. Some visitors only need an address or menu. Others want to learn the history, read press coverage, understand the brand, or explore multiple locations. A useful restaurant website has to support both types of visitors.
The completed project gave El Pollo Rico a responsive website that could serve customers today while preserving the story, reputation, and press visibility that helped make the brand a local institution.
Restaurant WordPress Website Content Strategy
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design content strategy focused on organizing a large amount of useful information without overwhelming customers. Restaurant visitors usually want answers quickly, but El Pollo Rico also had a deeper story worth presenting.
The website needed to make the essential content easy to find: locations, menus, ordering, catering, contact information, and hours. It also needed to support deeper brand content such as history, press coverage, FAQs, jobs, and location-specific details.
The Press section became a major part of the content strategy. El Pollo Rico’s media archive includes decades of articles, rankings, reviews, features, awards, and cultural references. Organizing those items helped turn scattered press mentions into a structured credibility asset.
The Restaurant Website Design also needed to support search behavior. Customers may search for El Pollo Rico, Peruvian chicken, rotisserie chicken, charcoal chicken, pollo a la brasa, Arlington restaurant information, Fairfax restaurant information, Wheaton restaurant information, or Woodbridge ordering details. The website needed to support that range of intent.
The content strategy also needed to reflect El Pollo Rico’s customer loyalty. The brand is known not only for its chicken, but also for its history, regular customers, family roots, and long-standing presence in the region. The website needed to support those themes in a way that felt useful rather than decorative.
For blueunderground, the Restaurant WordPress Website Design content strategy was to make the website practical, credible, and expandable. It needed to help customers act, help the restaurant communicate, and help the brand preserve its story over time.
Restaurant Brand System
The Restaurant Website Design was one part of a larger El Pollo Rico brand system. blueunderground’s related work included logo design, print and digital menu design, exterior signage, staff shirt design, WordPress development, website maintenance, managed SEO, and ongoing content support.
That larger system mattered because restaurant brands are experienced in many places. Customers encounter the brand on the website, on menus, on signs, on shirts, through online ordering, in press coverage, and at physical locations. Each touchpoint needs to feel connected.
The Restaurant Website Design helped anchor the system online. The website gave El Pollo Rico a central place for locations, menus, ordering, catering, history, press, jobs, and customer communication.
The menu design work helped carry the same identity into the ordering experience. Print and digital menus are not only information tools. They shape how customers understand food options, value, sides, specials, and the restaurant’s personality.
The staff shirt and signage work helped extend the brand into the physical environment. For a restaurant with multiple locations and high customer volume, the visual identity needs to remain consistent across web, print, apparel, and in-person experiences.
For blueunderground, the brand system work helped make the Restaurant Website Design more useful. The website did not stand alone. It worked with the larger El Pollo Rico identity to support customer recognition, consistency, and long-term brand value.
About El Pollo Rico
About El Pollo Rico
El Pollo Rico is a Peruvian charcoal-broiled rotisserie chicken restaurant brand serving customers in Maryland and Virginia. The company’s story began in Arlington, Virginia, when Victor and Nelida Solano started a local food phenomenon rooted in pollo a la brasa, family work, and the flavors of Peru.
El Pollo Rico’s own About page describes the business as beginning in 1988, when Victor Solano opened the country’s first Peruvian rotisserie chicken restaurant, inspired by local street vendors in his hometown of Trujillo, Peru. The restaurant’s history describes the business as growing from humble beginnings in Arlington into a multi-location brand serving loyal customers across the region.
The company’s locations include Arlington, Fairfax, Wheaton, and Woodbridge. The Arlington location is listed at 932 North Kenmore Street in Arlington, the Fairfax location is listed at 10801 Fairfax Boulevard, the Wheaton location is listed at 2517 University Boulevard West in Silver Spring, and the Woodbridge location is listed at 13470 Minnieville Road.
El Pollo Rico’s history also includes several major milestones. The Woodbridge location opened in 2008, Anthony Bourdain visited the Arlington location in 2009 for a segment connected to No Reservations, and the Fairfax location opened in 2022. The Fairfax opening was covered by FFXnow, which reported on El Pollo Rico’s expansion into Fairfax City.
The restaurant’s reputation is supported by decades of media coverage. El Pollo Rico’s Press section includes approximately 100 references spanning local, regional, and national publications, including coverage from ARLnow, Northern Virginia Magazine, Eater DC, Washingtonian, Serious Eats, Men’s Health, The Washington Post, Arlington Magazine, DCist, and other outlets.
ARLnow described El Pollo Rico as an Arlington gem and highlighted the restaurant’s 35-year legacy, the Solano family’s role in the business, the restaurant’s sauces, customer loyalty, and the continuing popularity of its Peruvian chicken. The article also noted that the brand had expanded to Arlington, Woodbridge, Fairfax, and Wheaton, with Victor’s children running several locations.
El Pollo Rico has also appeared in high-profile food coverage connected to celebrity and cultural recognition. ARLnow reported that Serena Williams appeared to visit the Virginia Square location in 2022, and Eat Like Bourdain includes El Pollo Rico in its Anthony Bourdain in Washington, DC coverage.
Regional food publications have continued to recognize El Pollo Rico as part of the local dining landscape. Eater DC included El Pollo Rico in its guide to iconic dishes around Washington, DC, and Eater DC also included El Pollo Rico in its Ballston neighborhood restaurant coverage. Northern Virginia Magazine included El Pollo Rico in its Best of NoVA food coverage, while Northern Virginia Magazine’s budget-friendly meals coverage reinforced the restaurant’s connection to accessible, high-value local dining.
El Pollo Rico’s press archive also includes longer-running recognition from regional and national food publications. Serious Eats published a feature on Peruvian rotisserie chicken in the Washington, DC area, and Men’s Health covered El Pollo Rico’s chicken. The Press archive also includes multiple Washington Post references, including coverage of essential dishes, affordable dining, Peruvian food, and earlier restaurant features.
That press history made the website especially important. A restaurant with this level of recognition needs more than a basic menu page. It needs a Restaurant Website Design that can preserve history, organize press, support multiple locations, help customers order, and communicate why the brand has remained meaningful for so many years.
The Restaurant Website Design for El Pollo Rico needed to reflect that larger business context. The site had to support new customers who simply wanted chicken, regular customers who needed quick ordering and location information, and media-aware visitors who wanted to understand the restaurant’s long-standing reputation.
The Restaurant WordPress Website Design also needed to support El Pollo Rico’s evolution. The brand grew from one Arlington location into a regional restaurant presence with locations in Virginia and Maryland, expanded menus, online ordering, catering, and an extensive press archive. The website needed to give that growth a clearer digital home.
The El Pollo Rico project is a strong example of blueunderground’s work for a restaurant brand where website design, WordPress development, logo design, menu design, signage, apparel, local SEO, press organization, and ongoing maintenance all needed to work together.
The finished Restaurant Website Design helped connect El Pollo Rico’s history, food, locations, media recognition, and customer service needs into one organized website experience. For a restaurant with deep roots and broad recognition, that kind of digital structure helps preserve the brand’s story while supporting everyday customer action.
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