Greek marinade, Latin heat: The recipe at Dino’s Famous Chicken tells the history of Pico Union

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

For many Pico Union neighbors who keep going to Dino’s Famous Chicken, the marinated chicken is definitely the star of the menu.

Jenaro Aviles, 24, has been going to the restaurant with his grandfather and mom since he was a child and sees it as a neighborhood gem.

“What isn’t there to love about Dino’s?” Aviles said. “It’s family-oriented, it’s a monument to L.A. If you come to L.A., it’s a must.”

At Dino’s Famous Chicken in Pico Union’s Byzantine-Latino Quarter, the restaurant’s story is told through its signature dish — a reminder of a once predominantly Greek neighborhood that has adapted over time to its largely Latino immigrant community.

In 1980, encouraged by his wife Eleni, owner Demetrios Pantazis, an immigrant from Patras, Greece, developed a chicken marinade that combined elements of Mediterranean cooking with the bold, spicy flavors common in Latin cuisine, mirroring the surrounding neighborhood.

“The chicken arrives with this unmistakable orange-red color — the marinade does that. It’s the first thing you notice, and it tells you before you even take a bite that something specific happened here,” said Gab Chabrán, Food and Culture writer at LAist.

The chicken is served over a bed of fries with corn tortillas ready for makeshift tacos. The dish is as Chabrán notes, “undoubtedly Los Angeles,” and helped turn Dino’s into a success in the area.

Dino’s Famous Chicken founder Demetrios Pantazis developed a chicken marinade that blended elements of Greek cooking with the bold, spicy flavors common in Latin cuisine — paving the way for the chicken’s signature flavor.

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Marina Peña

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The LA Local

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If you stop by the restaurant around noon or after 6 p.m., you’ll likely see a line of people eagerly waiting for their meal. The restaurant, which opened as a burger stand in 1968, continues to be operated as a family-run chain.

From the outside, you can tell the restaurant is fast-paced and lively, with customers lining up to order plates of grilled chicken, fries, rice and beans.

The smell of the signature marinade fills the space as workers move quickly behind the counter. They’re working on serving up trays of chicken topped with the chain’s well-known sauce.

Photos lining the walls show Pantazis over the decades, along with architectural renderings of the restaurant when it first opened and articles from Eater LA and the LA Times. The history on the walls is reinforced by the steady stream of customers, from the neighborhood and abroad.

“It’s just generational for us,” Aviles said, who feels like he’s carrying on a family tradition by eating at Dino’s. “No matter how far I go, I’m always going to come down to Dino’s.”

The restaurant at Pico Boulevard and Berendo Street is the flagship and the business has since expanded to five locations across Los Angeles.

After Pantazis died in 2017, his four daughters took over the operations of the chicken empire.

In a Facebook post, Pantazis’s family described Dino’s as his “life, his mission, his glory and his legacy.”

“There was nothing more he loved than to make people happy and to provide his customers with personal service and the best quality food possible,” the family said.

Some neighbors in Pico Union say their proximity is part of what makes it special. William Martinez, 26, describes the restaurant as part of the fabric of his community.

“This place is more of a childhood restaurant that I used to pass by,” Martinez said. “I always get the chicken and the fries. That’s the main thing here.”

That signature chicken dish typically comes in black takeout containers with fries, tortillas, a side of coleslaw and a tangy sauce. The marinade at Dino’s Famous Chicken is tangy, garlicky, and slightly smoky — not too spicy, which makes it easy to keep going back for more.

Aside from locals, the Pico Union spot also draws visitors from out of town. Friends Gabriel Mathenge, Kendall Holmes and Jackson Edwards were visiting from North Carolina and stopped by Dino’s after hearing it was a must-try spot in Los Angeles.

“I really like the flavoring of the chicken and $16 out here in L.A., it’s pretty good,” Mathenge said, who got a plate of their marinated chicken with rice and beans. “It’s a lot of food, overall a good experience.”

Holmes agreed, adding that the meal felt worth the price and that he would go back again.

Edwards said the Latino workers at Dino’s and the relaxed ambience of the place make it feel like L.A.

“It feels historic, like it’s been here for a long time based on the pictures on the walls,” he said. “It feels like a home for a home that I’m not at.”

That sense of history is rooted in the part of Pico Union where Dino’s stands — an area long shaped by a Greek enclave centered around St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral and institutions like Papa Cristo’s, which for decades served as a cultural and community hub.

“Something real was lost when Papa Cristo’s closed,” Chabrán said. “That was an explicitly Greek institutional presence — a market, a taverna, a community anchor for the nearby Orthodox congregation.”

But Dino’s, he explained, reflects a different kind of legacy. “Greek culture in that neighborhood didn’t survive by staying Greek in isolation,” Chabrán said. “It survived by becoming part of the neighborhood. The chicken is the document.”