Houston Business Journal
Author: Florian Martin – Reporter, Houston Business Journal
12.6.24
Watch out, Chipotle. National fast-casual Mexican chain Qdoba Mexican Eats is entering the Houston market for the first-time.
Qdoba, which is based in San Diego, has signed a franchise agreement far 15 restaurants with local IHOP franchisee Chad Owaida, who has 17 years of franchise management experience, the company said.
Owaida is running the Qdoba franchise group as Q Eats LLC. No exact locations have been announced yet, but the franchisee is in negotiations, for some, said Lori Osley, vice president of development for Qdoba.
Q Eats is looking for locations in Humble, Atascocita, Cypress, Tomball, Bellaire, the Rice area, Texas Medical Center area, the Heights, Midtown, Katy, Richmond, The Woodlands and Spring, Qdoba said.
Q Eats is working with broker Jeff Hayes of Palo Duro Commercial Partners to find locations.
The franchisee is opportunistic regarding whether to buy or lease and whether to remodel existing space or build from the ground up, Osley said. Qdoba restaurants are typically about 2,000 square feet and on a retail building’s end cap with or without a drive-thru.
She could not give an estimated opening date but said given the typical build-out time of three months, the hope is to have the first location or locations up and running by the end of next year or sooner.
“Our goal would be to get several restaurants in a short period of time,” Osley said. “‘But it doesn’t always work that way because … we want to wait for a great site. We don’t want to settle.”
Qdoba is offering a $100,000 incentives for restaurants that open before September 2026. The company is looking for one or two more franchisees for the Houston area and more in other Texas markets, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio.
“We like to award a little bit bigger territory,” she said. “We don’t do the single development process. Typically, we look for groups that can do at least three to 10 locations for sure.”
Qdoba has had a presence in Texas, specifically the Dallas-Fort Worth area, for more than a decade, Osley said, adding that it currently has 14 restaurants in the Lone Star State.
The franchise push comes after Butterfly Equity acquired Qdoba in August 2022. Just this year, the company has signed 22 new franchise agreements across the United States. Besides Houston, it is expanding in major markets such as Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Greensboro, North Carolina; Reno, Nevada; and the Washington, D.C., area. It also recently opened restaurants at U.S. military bases in Japan and South Korea.
Qdoba has about 800 restaurants in 47 states, Puerto Rico and Canada, with 500, more in the pipeline, Osley said, still well short of competitor Chipotle’s more than 3,500 locations.
In Texas, Qdoba is also competing with Freebirds World Burrito. The Austin-based chain has 64 restaurants across the state, including 18 in the Houston area. Earlier this year, it was acquired by Dallas area-based Sun Holdings LLC, which said it has an “ambitious expansion strategy.”
But Osley isn’t worried about Qdoba breaking into a saturated Mexican fast-casual market in a city that has plenty of Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants.
“There’s burgers on every corner, chicken on every corner, (but) somehow we all survive,” she said. “So, I like to think that people will come in and try our food and hopefully come back.”
One thing that distinguishes Qdoba from some of its competitors, she added, is that its queso and guacamole are free.