Kyle Gordon, CEO and Co-founder, Dillas QuesadillasFounded in 2013, Dillas (pronounced “dill-uhs”) Quesadillas specializes in quality quesadillas served fast alongside french fries (regular or loaded), chips and other sides.
Dillas currently has 11 locations in Texas and Louisiana.
Six are company-owned, all in the Dallas area. The five franchised restaurants are in smaller markets in Texas and Louisiana.
Looking to expand its franchise program, the chain began working on a drive-thru/carryout-only prototype in 2023. The first of these locations opened in Ruston, La., in fall 2024.
Here, Gordon discusses how this prototype responds to the ways customers use the chain, the prototype development process, and how Dillas created a community gathering space without a dining room.
How did Dillas get its start?
KG: I came up with the idea for a quesadilla place when I was in college. I graduated, tried to get some money together to get it opened, but I had a mentor say, “Get a job, see if you have ketchup in your veins.” I moved to Dallas and worked for Raising Cane’s for seven years and became a managing partner at a certified training restaurant.
In 2013, my wife and I decided to go out on our own and do this Dillas dream we came up with back in college.
Do you think of Dillas as QSR or as a fast casual?
KG: I feel like we’re quality convenience. I don’t know what the industry calls it, but there is a line between QSR and fast casual and we straddle that line. We have a very high-quality, sit-down restaurant-level product. But it would be foolish to not have some association with convenience because 85% of our product goes out in a bag. Around 50% is drive-thru, another large percentage is delivery, another is takeout, and another is online order pickup. Only about 15% to 20% is catering and dine in.
What led to the creation of the drive-thru/carryout-only prototype?
KG: This product mix and our customer demand played a big role in the decision. We don’t have TVs, and we don’t have alcohol. We provide a great lunch daypart and a great dinner daypart. We see customers using us because of the easy access to our product.
Of course, flexibility and the lower cost to build this prototype were also big factors. We decided that when we do new locations, we want to be flexible with our real estate. Now we can do almost any type of real estate: second-gen freestanding, ground-up prototype freestanding, end cap with drive-thru. This drive-thru/takeout-only prototype is another feather in our cap. It’s about 20% cheaper to build than our restaurants with dining rooms, and you can put it on a half-acre instead of a full-acre lot. So far there has been no sacrifice in top-line sales.
Tell us about the prototype development process?
KG: There are a lot of brands we aspire to be like. Dutch Bros, I really like their box. I thought it was a great look, and I saw how efficient they were in terms of getting people through while also maintaining a great culture. That was the biggest fear we had. We are a community-focused restaurant concept, and we put a lot of value on our team and their happiness. So, we didn’t want our box to be boring. We wanted it to be cool and a good place to work. When I saw they were doing a good job with that at Dutch Bros, I realized this could be done.
At that point, we started from scratch on a napkin. Everything starts with the kitchen. We worked with an architect and started laying it out. We thought it would be really cool to do a C-shaped building. At the front there’s one arm of the “C” with the service area for the takeout window. On the other arm you have the drive-thru window. The kitchen is in the middle section. We connect the top and bottom of the “C” with a covered patio without having to extend the patio out into a parking lot or having it be an add-on.
If so much of your business is taken off-premises, why did you make the patio a priority?
KG: Incorporating the patio really helps the look and gives customers a place to sit and enjoy their product. That was important to us because our food is very good fresh.
We also want a place for customers to sit because we do so much community involvement, like fundraisers and events. We didn’t want to be like, “get your stuff and get out.” We still want to be a place where guests can line up and hang out on a beautiful day. If it’s not such a beautiful day, we’ve got fans and shade. It checks a lot of the boxes a traditional prototype does, but it gives us a lot more flexibility in terms of where we can go, where we can build out and meet the needs of smaller communities.
So, you’re targeting smaller markets for growth?
KG: Yes. The first drive-thru-only location opened in Ruston, La., which is not a huge community. We want to be in places that are underserved in terms of quality and convenience.
We’ve found that some of these smaller towns are very passionate about the restaurants that open there and not only execute on a great product but are there for the community. That can be showing up for a football game or being involved with what a church needs or whatever it might be. They’re very passionate about supporting those places that support the community. That’s a little more difficult to find when you have massive DMAs. In Dallas it’s very difficult to break through because there’s so much competition. You have to drive by 30 restaurants just to get to Dillas. It’s more difficult to serve the community when you’re hyper focused on the 1- or 2-mile radius instead of the 3 to 8 miles that we serve in smaller communities.
What are the other aspects of your growth strategy?
KG: We have a lot of demographic data. It’s lake depth, not Mariana Trench depth like some of the national brands, but we know there are pockets of this country that a lot of national brands overlook. These places that have good population density or they have a fantastic anchor, like a college or even a giant employer.
Geographically, the Southeast Conference is the way I describe it. We’re in negotiations with groups in Alabama. We’ve got Louisiana already sold. We are actively looking in Oklahoma, Arkansas and other parts of Texas. We’d love to be in Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. We would be opportunistic in other areas, but we are extremely focused on the right people. We’re not interested in selling one unit to somebody in Kansas. Our strategy is to grow with large groups with excellent cultures and operations.
You’re a small concept. How do you get the interest of those large groups?
KG: We need to get in front of them. This is a relationship business. People with lots of resources and lots of operational experience are willing to deploy it in new concepts that have healthy financials. But, even more importantly, they want partners they can align with culturally. They’ve been there, done that, typically. They started something really big, sold something really big or they have 50 or 100 franchise locations in their portfolio.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to develop a drive-thru/carryout-only prototype?
KG: Be very detailed. The only things that surprised us at the end were just details. This particular wall is slightly blocked by the edge of the molding of this door, or that particular outlet could be moved over a few inches. Laying out the general shape isn’t necessarily that difficult, but you have to make sure that once you have the shape, everything is going to fit in it just right and work just right. If we had spent another 10 hours reviewing the plan, we probably could have avoided some of these minor issues. But this was the first one. There are going to be mistakes. I would encourage anyone who’s going into it to understand that mistakes will happen. Have it in your head that you’re going to build another one and you’re going to build it better. Do the absolute best that you can the first time, that way the next one is just refinement and not throwing out the whole design.
