Freebirds World Burrito
 |
|
| Private | |
| Industry | Restaurant |
| Founded | College Station, TX, U.S. in 1987 |
| Founders | Chad Howland |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas, U.S. |
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Number of locations
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90+ |
|
Area served
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Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, California and Utah |
|
Number of employees
|
2,300 (2015) |
| Parent | |
| Website | freebirds.com |
Freebirds World Burrito, Freebirds for short, is a regional chain of fast casual burrito restaurants founded in 1987 in Santa Barbara, California, USA. by Mark Orfalea. The restaurant chain expanded into Texas in 1990 under Orfalea's leadership. In 1994 Mark's college friend and manager of the Texas location, Pierre Dube, purchased control of the restaurant and gradually expanded the chain to span 19 restaurants in Texas. Orfalea retained ownership of the original California location and a license to continue using the name in California. The Texas Freebirds World Burrito chain, which was headquartered in College Station, was purchased by private-equity in 2007. The chain, headquartered in the Tavistock Restaurants offices in Emeryville, California, has grown to over 60 locations in Texas, 5 locations in Utah and others scattered throughout the midwest states of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
The Freebirds concept was created by Mark Orfalea in 1987. Originally, Orfalea designed his restaurant around the roasted chicken concept similar to El Pollo Loco with the idea to deliver fresh food to UC Santa Barbara students in the famed Isla Vista, California. When, at the end of the day, he was left with unused chicken, his aunt suggested he marinate the chicken in BBQ sauce and use it to make burritos. Thus, the Freebird's Burrito was born.
The name Freebird's stemmed from one of Mark's deceased father's favorite songs, "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. As Mark's father also loved motorcycles (from his time riding them in the service in Europe during World War II), especially Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Mark paid tribute to his father again by placing the trademark "man on a motorcycle" crashing through the restaurant wall into the restaurants.
With the success of Freebirds in Isla Vista/UCSB, Mark set his sights on expansion, selecting, after a nationwide tour of college campuses, the Northgate District at the nearby Texas A&M University in College Station in 1991. In part, this decision was impacted by the large volume of beer sales at the nearby bar, The Dixie Chicken. At the time of expansion, the College Station Freebirds was being run by Bobby Parr as manager with the help of David Bomer and multiple other friends Mark had made during his time at UCSB. Pierre Dube was one of these friends. After graduation in 1987, Pierre had left UCSB to work for McDonald's Restaurant Corporation as an accountant. Around the time of Freebirds expansion into the Texas market in 1991, Pierre joined the Freebirds team, leaving McDonald's to manage Mark's restaurant in College Station. Thus Freebird's Monster Burritos and the SuperMonster, (or Forearm Burrito as it was called by another of the Freebirds CA employees) made its way into Texas.
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Wikipedia