A team of seasoned Mississippi restaurateurs has founded a new chain restaurant development company with an appetite for expansion across the southeastern United States.
Headquartered in Jackson, Miss., Eat Here Brands, LLC operates two Five Guys Burgers & Fries units, as well as proprietary brands including Babalu Tacos & Tapas and Table 100, each with one unit in Jackson, and Interim Restaurant & Bar, with a unit in Memphis.
Founders Bill Latham and Al Roberts, long-time Mississippi restaurant industry pros, created the Babalu Tacos & Tapas and Table 100 concepts and have ownership in the Interim Restaurant & Bar in Memphis. In early 2012, the pair teamed up with Michael Stack, former chairman and CEO of McAlister's Deli Restaurant Group and Quaker Steak & Lube, and Ned Lidvall, former president and CEO of On The Border Cafes and Rock Bottom Restaurants, to create Eat Here Brands, a development company to secure financing for their brands' expansion into new markets. The company claimed to have raised more than $10 million by the end of 2012.
Eat Here plans to open 10 more Five Guys restaurants in Mississippi within the next 4 years and is particularly excited about the prospects for its own Babalu Concept.