Fixin for some chicken: Kūkri opens new location

The smell of fresh, warm baskets of chicken tenders filled the air in Tin Can Alley as customers lined up for a taste of Kūkri chicken, which opened in Albuquerque last month.

Members of the Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce made an appearance to host a ribbon cutting for the chicken restaurant.

The restaurant branch, locally owned and operated by Basit and Kanwal Gauba, is part of a chain of restaurants by the couple. The new Kūkri marks the third location for the chicken restaurant and the seventh restaurant opened by the Gauba family.

The family plans to continue expanding their restaurants into other cities in New Mexico, with their next expansion plan set in Rio Rancho, Basit said.

Other restaurants in the family has include Stackers and Tikka Spice, which was the first restaurant in the start of their restaurant business adventure.

Following the theme of previous Kūkri locations, the new location at Tin Can was chosen based off of popularity and keeping food hall locations.

“We’re expecting this to be one of our busiest locations,” said Basit. “This location specifically has a lot of parking, so we’re definitely going to take advantage of that with a bunch of events. We’ll be partnering up with Santa Fe Brewery to do events with them as well.”

Marketing director Katie Wine said Kūkri was named the best fried chicken restaurant in New Mexico by Yelp earlier this month, which helped generate excitement.

Basit said all of their restaurants have a core value of community outreach, and the new Kūkri location will continue to hold true to those values.

Customers who went to Kūkri on its opening day received a free sandwich if they brought one non-perishable item to donate to the Roadrunner Food Bank. Wine said a percentage of sales from opening day were donated to the food bank.

“One of our biggest focuses is helping those underserved in our community,” Basit said. “We like to do these kind of things all the time, and I thought this would be a great opportunity during a grand opening. We’re already giving something away, so it might be good to have others participate as well.”

Kūkri features a chicken-themed menu and, Basit said, Kūkri is a certified halal restaurant, so all menu items are safe for consumption for anyone who practices Islam . The Gauba’s are from Pakistan and wanted to keep Pakistani flavors in their meals and combine that with classic New Mexican flavors.

“We’re offering great product,” Basit said. “For one, it’s halal and it’s one of its kind here in the Albuquerque market. The great service and great quality is translating to the community support we are getting.”