Fast food chain El Pollo Loco (NASDAQ: LOCO) will be reporting results this Thursday after market hours. Here’s what you need to know.

El Pollo Loco missed analysts’ revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $121.5 million, flat year on year. It was a satisfactory quarter for the company, with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA estimates but a miss of analysts’ revenue estimates.

Is El Pollo Loco a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, the market is expecting El Pollo Loco’s revenue to grow 8.5% year on year, improving from the 1.8% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. El Pollo Loco has missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates multiple times over the last two years.

Looking at El Pollo Loco’s peers in the traditional fast food segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Krispy Kreme’s revenues decreased 2.9% year on year, beating analysts’ expectations by 1%, and Yum China reported revenues up 8.8%, topping estimates by 3.9%. Krispy Kreme traded up 25.4% following the results while Yum China was also up 9.7%.

Read our full analysis of Krispy Kreme’s results here and Yum China’s results here.

Debates over possible tariffs and corporate tax adjustments have raised questions about economic stability in 2025. While some of the traditional fast food stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 7.9% on average over the last month. El Pollo Loco is up 3.3% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $13.63 (compared to the current share price of $11.10).

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