One of the most well-known fast-casual restaurant chains in Texas is looking for franchising partners to expand to six states, including Missouri.

Taco Cabana, a Tex-Mex restaurant chain based in San Antonio since it was founded in 1978, has more than 150 locations in Texas and New Mexico, and hopes to eventually expand nationwide, company officials said.

The restaurant chain’s menu consists of homemade tortillas, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, enchiladas, fajitas, breakfast taco boxes and margaritas.

In its first major move toward nationwide expansion, Taco Cabana is seeking franchising groups that would open clusters of restaurants in suburbs in six states geographically close to Texas — starting with Missouri, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Tennessee, along with more sites in the rapidly expanding suburbs in Texas, the company said. The chain said it has deep market saturation in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso and Houston.

With the decision primarily dependent on finding the right operators with the ability to open five locations at a time, Taco Cabana will “absolutely be open to any of those territories,” said President and Chief Operating Officer Ulyses Camacho.

Considering the geographic distance from Texas, the idea behind targeting those areas first is that franchisees in those states could benefit from the chain’s existing distribution networks and systems in Texas, Camacho said. The plan is to try to recruit franchisee groups over the next six months, and then go into site selection and approval next year, Camacho said.

The chain feels that it has the backing and expertise to make sure that restaurant operators are successful, he said.

“We have the resources, we have the network, and it does reflect on what we offer in terms of leadership, history, understanding the business, the ups and downs,” Camacho said.

The expansion effort was launched after Taco Cabana was acquired in 2021 by Yadav Enterprises LLC, a California-based operator of multiple franchised chains led by Anil Yadav that now operates Taco Cabana through a firm called Y-TC Enterprises. Yadav’s firm purchased Taco Cabana for $85 million in cash in a deal with then-owner Fiesta Restaurant Group Inc., based in Dallas. At the time of the deal, Yadav Enterprises was the target franchisee for Jack in the Box and TGI Friday’s, and one of the largest franchisees for Denny’s. Taco Cabana is the first brand the company has 100% owned and operated.

Since its acquisition by Yadav, the Taco Cabana chain has gone through behind-the-scenes work to get leadership and operational systems in place to expand a mostly corporate-owned chain to franchising groups over a larger geographic footprint, Camacho said. The franchising program was developed by new owner and multi-unit franchisee Yadav, the company said.

Camacho said that another key step toward that expansion was successfully piloting a new corporate-owned prototype restaurant in Spring, Texas, last spring, in the same style the chain would offer to potential franchisees. Another location of the new prototype will soon open in Katy, Texas.

Every Taco Cabana location has a drive-thru, and the new prototype creates a smaller dining room and adds a double drive-thru, a pickup window for to-go orders and a patio, along with a black and pink color scheme on the outside of the building, Camacho said.

Franchises can be awarded to either individual operators or to franchise groups that are looking for territory exclusivity, Taco Cabana said.

After the initial brand’s initial announcement earlier this month that it was looking for franchise operators, several groups have started discussions with Taco Cabana about potential partnerships, Camacho said. A few of those groups have been from Missouri, he said.

When it comes to expanding in Missouri, Taco Cabana doesn’t have any preference on whether it would move into the St. Louis or Kansas City markets or other regions, Camacho said. The decision on where to locate its first restaurants would depend mostly on the franchise operators and where they would want to open new locations, in groups of five to seven at a time, he said.