Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar grows south of the border. The Cheesecake Factory expands in Las Vegas. Fuzzy's Tacos has big plans for Florida. TGI Fridays updates its China operations. These stories and much more in this edition of the Restaurant Development Report.
Boston's Restaurant & Sports Bar, a casual dining concept, plans to open a restaurant in Tuxtla, Mexico, in August. The chain plans to establish a total of 11 restaurants in Mexico in 2015. Boston's has deals to open seven units in Monterrey, a two-unit deal in Chiapas and another seven-unit agreement for Mexico City. Boston's has sold 34 units to date, all slated to open by the end of 2018. The company also announced plans to develop a new corporate office in Mexico City. It currently operates three corporate offices in Canada and one in the United States.
The Cheesecake Factory opened its fourth Las Vegas area location. The restaurant's design features French limestone floors and decorative columns, hand-painted murals and modern lighting; the 9,900-square-foot restaurant accommodates approximately 295 guests.
Fuzzy's Taco Shop signed four multi-unit development agreements that will bring the fast-casual Baja-style Mexican restaurant concept to Florida this summer. The agreements call for opening more than 20 new Fuzzy's Taco Shops across the Sarasota, Tampa, Orlando and Fort Myers areas over the next 6 years. Today, there are 79 Fuzzy's Taco Shops in 9 states: Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana and Nebraska.
Russo's Restaurants signed a three unit franchise agreement package with the VKL Franchise, LLC group, based in Brownsville, Texas. VKL plans to open its first location in Brownsville, with a second to follow in Harlingen and a third in Laredo. Early projections call for VKL to open its Brownsville location by mid to late October.
Salsarita's Fresh Cantina franchisee Barton & Agha, LLC plans to open six locations in Texas during the next four years. The units will operate in such towns as Lewisville, Plano, Frisco and Allen.
sweetFrog Enterprises, LLC opened a location in Jacksonville, Texas. There are now 16 sweetFrog stores located in the Lone Star State.
Longtime franchisee Chaswood Resources Group has acquired an additional six TGI Fridays restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai. Chaswood now operates 20 TGI Fridays restaurants in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. As part of the acquisition, Chaswood committed to develop 10 new TGI Fridays restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing, in addition to the 4 new restaurants it has previously agreed to develop in Shenzhen. Chaswood agreed to invest in its existing Beijing restaurants, updating their image to the latest TGI Fridays design.