Qdoba Mexican Grill
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| Qdoba Mexican Eats | |
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Formerly called
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Restaurants |
| Founded | 1995 (Denver, Colorado) |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | San Diego, California |
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Number of locations
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641 |
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Area served
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United States and Canada |
| Products | Burritos, Tacos, Quesadillas, Nachos, Taco salad, Tortilla soup, Mexican Gumbo |
| Owner | Jack in the Box |
| Website | qdoba.com |
Qdoba Mexican Eats (/kjuːˈdoʊbə/ kew-DOH-bə), is a chain of fast casual restaurants in the United States and Canada serving Mexican-style cuisine. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jack in the Box since its purchase from ACI Capital, Western Growth Capital, and other private investors in 2003.
This chain can trace it origins to the opening of the Zuma Fresh Mexican Grill in 1995 by Colorado native Anthony Miller and partner Robert Hauser at Grant Street and Sixth Avenue in Denver.
Miller and Hauser met in New York City, where Miller was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch and Hauser was attending the Culinary Institute of America and working at the famed Le Cirque restaurant. Hauser developed most of the recipes and tried to design the menu to be healthier by replacing the use of traditional animal fats with vegetable oils and tried to use more fresh vegetables and herbs when he could. During the first year, lines stretched out the door during most evenings at dinnertime, but it usually took roughly seven minutes for customers in a 30-person line to get served. Zuma was a made-up name but was also the name of a friend's cat.
The Denver, Colorado, location was an immediate success, with first year revenues exceeding $1,500,000. The cost of opening the 1,300-square-foot (120 m2) store was only $180,000.
In 1997, the name of the company was changed from Zuma to Z-Teca Mexican Grill because of a lawsuit from another restaurant using the Zuma name in Boston and by confusion caused by the similar-sounding ZuZu Handmade Mexican Grill chain that was operating in the Denver area at that time. During the same year, Z-teca began to offer franchise opportunities to entrepreneurs to expand the chain outside of its core territories of Colorado.
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Wikipedia