Lo-Lo's Chicken and Waffles Hits the Streets

Jose Gonzalez

Larry "Lo-Lo" White lamps in front of the Lo-Lo Mobile

Yesterday's memorial ceremony for Michael Jackson brought a lot of the memories of the man and the myth to the forefront.  One of our favorites was Magic Johnson's outing of The Gloved One's love for KFC by the bucket load.

While the dearly departed King of Pop relished The Colonel's secret recipe, we suspect that he would have changed his tune if he had gotten a chance to have a mouthful of Larry "Lo-Lo" White's best bird, which is one of the cornerstones of Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles.
We daydream about Lo-Lo's fried chicken so much, with its crisp and savory skin giving way to perfectly succulent poultry, that our hearts jumped yesterday afternoon when we read @loloschicken's tweet that their truck was headed downtown for the Beyoncé concert at the U.S. Airways Center later that night.  While recent news of a new Lolo's location hitting Scottsdale by August 1st has East Valley foodies licking their chops, a mobile chicken & waffle unit helmed by White would truly be the icing on the cake, striking down appetites all across town.

Alas, it turns out that the truck in question wasn't a chicken shack on wheels ready to slang them finely fried breasts, thighs, and wings.  (Though there seems to be some openness to idea of classic Lo-Lo's fare in motion and even ordered via Twitter according to this response.)

What folks saw was a brawny Ford pickup gussied up with graphics depicting Lo-Lo's signature strutting rooster living it up.

When asked about serving the hungry, post-concert masses, the ever-friendly Larry White replied, "Oh naw - This is the catering truck and I just brought it down for some promoting."

At the mention of the excitement that's building for the budding eastside branch of the original, just-south-of-downtown location, White's face lights up.

"We're excited, too!  We're on the southeast corner of Thomas and Scottsdale.  We're moving into what used to be an old Kyoto Bowl, so we'll have about two to three times more room than we do down here."

With all of the move making, it seemed like a good time to bring up the old days of the original incarnation of Lo-Lo's: a limited-menu late night dining venture being run out of White's grandmother's restaurant, the legendary Mrs. White's Golden Rule Cafe.

"Oh man!" the grinning chef proclaimed, "that was way back in 1997."

"It's 12 years later and look at me now!"