Zankou Chicken South Bay

Zankou Chicken South Bay is a restaurant in Lawndale, CA. It serves Mediterranean cuisine featuring fresh rotisserie chicken, shawarma, salads, and family-friendly meals for dine-in or takeout. The menu includes specific offerings such as the Chicken Tarna Bowl, which features spit-roasted chicken marinated in authentic spices and hand-sliced to order. Other staples include kabob combos made with flame-grilled chicken or USDA Choice meat, and falafel salads topped with crisp falafel, romaine, Persian cucumber, tomato, red onion, kalamata olives, and feta, finished with lemon-tahini dressing. The restaurant also offers fattoush salad with pita chips and a Fattoush dressing, as well as rotisserie chicken family meals that serve between two and eight people. These meals come with fresh pita bread, pickled turnips, chilies, and a choice of house-made sides, salads, and sauces.

The business history dates back to 1962 in Beirut, where Vartkes Iskenderian opened a small chicken joint after working in a pinball arcade. He named the restaurant Zankou after a tiny Armenian river. The establishment initially struggled, selling only two chickens on its first day, but gained popularity when Margaret Iskenderian created a distinctive garlic sauce known as toum. Due to civil war in the 1970s, the family moved to the United States. In 1984, their son Mardiros brought the brand to Hollywood, expanding the menu to include shawerma and falafel. The restaurant is now run by Mardiros' wife and their four sons. It operates as a family-owned and operated chain that combines the ease of fast-casual dining with family recipes passed down through generations. The brand is described as fast-casual Armenian and Lebanese cuisine, with a focus on dishes made from scratch.

The location sits on Hawthorne Boulevard, approximately a tenth of a mile from Redondo Beach Boulevard. It is also about a tenth of a mile from a post office and a clinic. The restaurant holds a rating of 4.70 based on customer reviews.

Zankou Chicken South Bay provides a local option for Mediterranean comfort food in Lawndale, serving dishes rooted in a family history that spans from Beirut to Los Angeles.