Chicken & Rice Guys is packing up its Everett warehouse after a decade there and moving its commissary and food truck hub to Woburn, with plans for a new takeout counter after the facility's October debut. The halal street food operator, known for its rice bowls and food trucks scattered across Greater Boston, will set up shop at 218 W Cummings Park, just south of where Washington Street meets Route 128/I-95.
The new location is a relocation, not an expansion of a separate site, according to co-founder and operating manager Jaemin Lee, who told NBC Boston that the Woburn hub is a direct replacement for the current warehouse and commissary in Everett, where the company operated for 10 years. Lee said the move to Woburn broadens the company's operating boundaries and opens markets it could not reach from inside the city. The nearly 5,000-square-foot facility is slated to open in October, with takeout service planned for sometime afterward, according to a press release cited by the same outlet.
A Decade-Old Brand Built From a Single Food Truck
Chicken & Rice Guys has come a long way from its origins as a single food truck in 2012. Babson College alumnus Ian So co-founded the company that year after buying its first truck on eBay for $19,000, according to Gold House. What began as one vehicle has grown into a restaurant, food truck, and catering business built around halal street cuisine, with locations today in Boston's Downtown Crossing, Financial District, Seaport District, and Everett, plus food trucks operating throughout the greater Boston area.
The brand has also built a long track record on the Rose Kennedy Greenway food truck program, where it has operated continuously since 2012 — making it one of the longest-tenured mobile vendors in the park system's 17-year history, as Hoodline previously reported in coverage of a food truck festival at Rowes Wharf Plaza.
Testing Woburn Before Committing to It
The Woburn move isn't the company's first appearance in that corner of the suburbs. Before leasing permanent space there, Chicken & Rice Guys built local brand familiarity by serving office workers and residents during recurring “Food Truck Tuesday” lunch pop-ups at West Cummings Park's Sisitzky Park, according to property owner Cummings Properties. That pop-up presence effectively let the company gauge suburban demand before signing on for a permanent commissary and warehouse hub.
The new hub joins an established food cluster along Washington Street at West Cummings Park, which already includes eateries such as Wicked Bagel, Anna's Taqueria, Maki Maki, and Kaapi & Co. Indian Coffee Café, per Cummings Properties. The landlord manages 11 million square feet of commercial space across 11 Boston-area suburban communities and directs all real estate profits to local nonprofit organizations.
Recovering From a Rocky 2017
The company's suburban retail history hasn't always been smooth. Chicken & Rice Guys closed an outer-suburban storefront in Medford in January 2020 as part of ongoing adjustments to its physical footprint, even as it kept its downtown Boston storefronts running, according to Boston Restaurant Talk.
The brand also weathered a far more serious setback years earlier. In April 2017, Chicken & Rice Guys voluntarily suspended all operations and closed its four storefronts and truck fleet after an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak sickened 15 people and hospitalized 10 across Greater Boston, according to Food Safety News. In the aftermath, the company became the first food truck operator in the United States to equip its fleet with VioSafe continuous white-light germ-killing disinfection technology, per Vyv Tech.
Part of a Growing Regional Food Truck Scene
Chicken & Rice Guys made its first move outside Massachusetts in July 2019, when it opened a franchise location in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, Texas, a milestone Hoodline covered in its report on that expansion. The Woburn move comes as Boston's own mobile food scene keeps growing: the city's municipal food truck program, established in 2011, had a network of 95 licensed trucks by 2023. Customers can track the Woburn opening and the company's broader menu at cnrguys.com.
