Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles is a Long Beach, California

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

-based soul food

Soul food

Soul food cuisine consists of a selection of foods traditional in the cuisine of African Americans. It is closely related to the cuisine of the Southern United States...

 restaurant chain founded by Herb Hudson, a Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 native, in 1975. It is best known, as the name states, for serving chicken and waffles

Chicken and waffles

Chicken and waffles is a dish combining waffles, a breakfast food, with fried chicken. It is served in certain specialty restaurants in the United States....

, both together and separately, although they do offer more traditional menu items as well.

Soon after it was opened, Hudson had friends in Motown and television such as Natalie Cole

Natalie Cole

Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...

 who would spread the word to other celebrities; Redd Foxx

Redd Foxx

John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...

 would tell his audience that he went there. The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

refers to Roscoe's as "such an L.A. institution that people don't even question the strange combo anymore." The New York Times refers to it as a "beloved soul food chain". The original location in Hollywood remains popular with celebrities.

In 2008, Roscoe's fielded a successful trademark

Trademark

A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...

 infringement

Trademark infringement

Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attaching to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees...

 lawsuit against "Rosscoe's House of Chicken & Waffles" which had recently opened in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. The infringing store was forced to drop its infringing logo and name. A previous "Rosscoe's" had opened in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, but the LA-based chain opted to not sue that location because it had no plans to enter the market; however, Roscoe's did plan to enter the Chicago market.

The chain has been featured in popular media a number of times. The 1988 movie Tapeheads

Tapeheads

Tapeheads is a 1988 comedy film directed by Bill Fishman. The film stars John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Sam Moore, and Junior Walker. The movie was produced by Michael Nesmith, who is seen briefly in the film as a bottled water delivery man.-Plot:...

features a fake ad spot for the company. It was also mentioned in Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

's Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown (film)

Jackie Brown is a 1997 American crime drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is an adaptation of the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard and pays homage to 1970s blaxploitation films....

, the comedy film Rush Hour and Swingers. Ludacris

Ludacris

Christopher Brian Bridges , better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings...

 mentioned the restaurant in the song "Call Up The Homies" from the album Theater of the Mind

Theater of the Mind

Though the album was well received by music critics, it debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, selling 214,000 copies in its first week, making it his sixth top 5 album. It was his first album since 2000's Back for the First Time and 2001's Word of Mouf to not reach number one status, and his...

with the lyrics "Let's roll to Roscoe's and grab somethin to eat." Snoop Dogg

Snoop Dogg

Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr. , better known by his stage name Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Snoop is best known as a rapper in the West Coast hip hop scene, and for being one of Dr. Dre's most notable protégés. Snoop Dogg was a Crip gang member while in high school...

 considers the restaurant one of his favorites: on his own reality show, Snoop Dogg's Father Hood

Snoop Dogg's Father Hood

Snoop Dogg's Father Hood was an American television reality show starring rapper Snoop Dogg and his family. His family includes wife Shante, daughter Cori whom he calls "Choc", son Cordell whom he calls "Rook", and his oldest son Corde whom he calls "Spank". It premiered December 9, 2007 on E! and...

, he took David Beckham

David Beckham

David Robert Joseph Beckham, OBE is an English footballer who plays midfield for Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer, having previously played for Manchester United, Preston North End, Real Madrid, and A.C...

 in 2007, and in 2008 he took Larry King

Larry King

Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....

 on Larry King Live

Larry King Live

Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....

. The Notorious B.I.G. also mentions Roscoe's in his song "Going Back to Cali". The chain was also mentioned on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from September 10, 1990 to May 20, 1996. The show stars Will Smith as a fictionalized version of himself, a street-smart teenager from West Philadelphia who is sent to move in with his aunt and uncle in their...

.

Roscoe's is alluded to repeatedly in the 2009 blaxploitation

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 parody Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite is a 2009 American film starring Michael Jai White, Salli Richardson, Arsenio Hall, Kevin Chapman and Tommy Davidson. It is a spoof of 1970s blaxploitation films...

, which features a gunfight set at a "Roscoe's Chili and Donuts". Roscoe, the owner, mentions that the business is not going well. A later scene has Roscoe screaming "That's it!" and running out of a diner when an overworked waitress complains that they only have waffles and chicken.

Locations

Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles has five locations throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area

Greater Los Angeles Area

The Greater Los Angeles Area, or the Southland, is a term used for the Combined Statistical Area sprawled over five counties in the southern part of California, namely Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County and Ventura County...

.

• Los Angeles
  Los Ángeles
  Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
  
   (Hollywood) (1514 N. Gower St)
• Los Angeles (Mid-City)
  Mid-City, Los Angeles, California
  Mid-City is a district in Los Angeles, California. It is 2.5 miles south of Hollywood and 3.5 miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The Lafayette Square, Victoria Park, Wellington Square, and Vineyard neighborhoods are part of the district.-Geography and history:Mid-City's boundaries are roughly...
  
   (5006 W. Pico Blvd)
• Inglewood
  Inglewood, California
  Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. Its population stood at 109,673 as of the 2010 Census...
  
   (621 W. Manchester Ave)
• Long Beach
  Long Beach, California
  Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
  
   (730 E. Broadway Blvd)
• Pasadena
  Pasadena, California
  Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
  
  (830 N. Lake Ave)

External links

• Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles Official website
• GRUB-tastic review at The Good Grub