1 week Ago By [email protected] (Jay Wilson)
While Mexican food has been found across the United States for generations, it's fair to say that it's never been more popular. A combination of a growing Mexican American population and increasing awareness of different styles of Mexican cuisine has arguably led to a skyrocketing in Mexican food's availability. Nowadays, approximately 10% of all restaurants in the US serve Mexican food, with the vast majority of US counties having at least one Mexican restaurant, according to data from Pew Research Center .
We'd bet, too, that a lot of those Mexican restaurants come from a select number of chains that have begun to dominate the culinary landscape of the United States. While there are several big hitters amongst Mexican chain restaurants that everyone knows, like Taco Bell, Chipotle, and QDoba, there are a fair few upstarts that are beginning to make a real name for themselves. Authentic taco joints that have their roots in Texas have started to creep across the country, while select burrito and fajita chain restaurants have begun to take over the scene.
We're pretty stoked to live in a world where there's so much good Mexican food around — and you might find your new favorite chain right here. 1. Condado Tacos You can expect to see a lot of Condado Tacos in the coming years.
The taco joint has only been around since 2014, but in the decade or so that it's been operating it's managed to gain over 50 locations spread across the Midwest. However, the last few years has been particularly kind to Condado Tacos, with the chain gaining 10 units – increasing its restaurant stock by over 25% — in 2023 alone. It accompanied this rapid growth with a statement of intent to open 12 units each year going forward, and if it can keep that pace up, it won't be long before there's one near you.
It's clear that Condado Tacos is readying itself for that growth through the implementation of new technologies. In late 2024, Condado Tacos began working with PAR Data Central to optimize its operations and track food costs more precisely. The intention of the implementation of this data system is to ultimately unlock more possibilities for growth for the company, and honestly, we kinda don't doubt that it'll be a huge help.
2. Bubbakoo's Burritos It's frustratingly hard to find a good burrito in a chain restaurant, and Bubbakoo's Burritos is trying its best to change that — while also offering a twist on the classics. The chain was founded in the Jersey Shore in 2008, with a unique selling point (USP) of dishing up Mexican fusion creations like its General Tso's Crispy Chicken Burrito or its Birria Fries (don't worry, some of its other menu items are way more traditional).
Well, it's clear that people are continuing to resonate with its boldness. Nowadays, Bubbakoo's Burritos has more than 100 locations across 15 different states. What's particularly impressive, and why Bubbakoo's Burritos has earned a spot on our list, is how many of these locations have opened in the last few years.
Bubbakoo's managed to open 17 new restaurants in 2023, and a further 14 in the year up to June 2024. It has a large number of restaurants also due to open in the near future, and has its sights set keenly on the Midwest as an expansion area. Plus, Bubbakoo's Burritos is well-placed in the chain restaurant space to expand into non-traditional restaurant units, and is eyeing locations in food courts and other transit areas to further increase its reach.
3. Taco John's Taco John's is far from an unknown name in the Mexican food space, but it's generally been overshadowed by its big-name competitors (cough, cough, Taco Bell, who Taco John's has been caught in a trademark dispute with ). Well, all that looks set to change in the next few years.
It looks as though Taco John's has received a shot in the arm in the last few years which could see its growth explode. The first is through a concerted push for new unit openings throughout the last few years, with 16 opening in 2023 alone and dozens of new stores opening since 2020, beating the odds on post-pandemic growth. The second is through the appointment of a brand new CEO, Heather Neary, who set her sights on the future for this legacy company and immediately began to consider growth opportunities.
Neary is especially interested in exploring Taco John's growth amongst younger generations, who can help to steward the brand into the future. It aims to target these younger customers while also working with its existing franchisees to build their profitability and strength. It's pretty clear that under Neary's stewardship, Taco John's is going to stick around — and thrive.
4. Chuy's One big sign that a restaurant's about to explode is when it's bought by a larger organization, who've clearly spied its potential profitability and capacity for expansion. That's exactly what happened to Chuy's in 2024.
The Tex-Mex chain has been around since 1982 and immediately became known for its eye-catching decor, and it gradually built up its name amongst loyal customers — until it caught the attention of Darden Restaurants, the huge multi-brand operator that also owns Olive Garden (which may or may not be fast food) and LongHorn Steakhouse. Darden put in a bid to acquire Chuy's, and in October 2024, the restaurant changed hands, with Darden acquiring over 100 restaurants in the process. Well, it looks as though that acquisition has already begun to pay dividends.
The Texas-based chain has announced multiple new restaurant openings for 2025, including units in South Austin and East Dallas. A 210-seater Chuy's joint was also announced to open in Kyle, a rapidly-growing city in the Greater Austin area, with the new restaurant intended to become a staple of the expanding community there. With moves like this, Chuy's is staking its claim across Texas in a big way, and it's only a matter of time before it'll be somewhere near you.
5. Torchy's Tacos We've gotta say, we get a big kick out of watching small, independently-run businesses achieve success and expand in a big way. That's exactly what happened – and what we think will continue to happen — with Torchy's Tacos.
Its story started back in 2006, when now-CEO Mike Rypka started selling his tacos out of a food truck in Austin, Texas. In the nearly two decades since then, Rypka has seen his business expand to own and operate over 110 locations in well over a dozen states. That's all without relying on a franchising model, too.
Rypka puts his brand's success down to the sheer freshness and quality of its food, and that success has translated to him being able to forecast a 10-15% annual growth for the company going forward. While Torchy's is proudly Texas born and bred, it doesn't shy away from its ambitions to grow nationally. Long-term, Torchy's Tacos doesn't wish to become as big as behemoths like Taco Bell, but it has its sights firmly set on having 1,000 or more restaurants at some point in its future.
With ambitions like that, the sky's truly the limit for this brand. 6. Hot Head Burritos Hot Head Burritos focuses on one thing above all: Providing its customers with great-tasting food.
This has led the Ohio-based chain on a journey from being a single location back in 2007 to an impressive business that operates more than 80 locations across the United States. Unlike some other Mexican food chain restaurants out there, Hot Head Burritos has kept its growth fairly slow and steady, which has allowed it to gently build its brand name and its foundations for the future. It looks as though that slightly more moderate pace is going to pay off in the near future.
2025 looks set to be a big year for Hot Head Burritos as it sets to expand in four different states, including its home turf of Ohio. This follows impressively-plotted expansion ambitions for the year before, and in total the brand wants to open 20 new units throughout 2025, which would mark a 20% increase on its current footprint. Certain moves that the company has made, like introducing a loyalty scheme and holding competitions for its customers to win free vacations, has definitely helped it keep its core base faithful — and it looks as though this is paying off in terms of pure growth.
7. Velvet Taco Velvet Taco is one of those restaurants you just wanna be at. Everything from its branding to its colorful, incredibly Instagrammable stores scream cool — but let's be real, it's the food that counts, and that's something that Velvet Taco really nails.
So much so that it's seen a serious boost in its growth in recent years. The brand saw a 24% growth throughout 2023 compared to 2022, while by early 2024 it was opening its 46th location, having already successfully built its brand in seven different states. So what does the future hold for Velvet Taco? Why, more growth, of course! The eventual plan for this chain is to get to around 200 locations by 2030, which would see it almost quadrupling in size in just five years.
Despite this, Velvet Taco is keen not to be seen as a chain at all. Instead, it wants to be known for the quality of its menu and the uniqueness of its output, and its ability to give its customers a dining experience instead of just feeding them quickly and turfing them out on the street afterward. That added emphasis on customer care is what's gonna help see this brand explode in the near future.
8. Fuzzy's Taco Shop If you'd have asked us whether Fuzzy's Taco Shop was going to be one of those restaurants you'll be seeing everywhere or not a few years back, we'd have likely said no. The pandemic was hard on a lot of eateries, and it hit this taco chain pretty hard.
Fuzzy's Taco Shop's unit number dropped from 146 at the end of 2019 to 132 at the end of 2023, and despite an acquisition by Dine Brands in 2022, the future wasn't looking super bright for the restaurant. However, all of that looks set to change in the next few years. In 2024, Fuzzy's Taco Shop signed two deals to open 40 new units over the next eight years across Texas and Arizona, taking its restaurant number to its highest yet.
It's also marked 2025 as a growth year in which Fuzzy's pushes into new markets and introduces its dining concept to customers that have never tried it before. It appears that the closure of some of its restaurants was ultimately a good move for the company, as it was able to expand in different ways as a result, and look to a much brighter future. 9.
Fajita Pete's Fajita Pete's has been around since 2008, but it wasn't until 2015 that owner Pedro "Pete" Mora realized the true potential of his brand. That was the year that Mora debuted a new concept for the restaurant which scaled down its menu and put an emphasis on scalability, instead of focusing too heavily on a full-service offering. This rejig paid off, and nowadays, Fajita Pete's has well over 100 franchises in numerous different locations, marking a massive escalation of its footprint across the country.
It seems like there's a lot more to come, too. In early 2024, Fajita Pete's franchisees merged with MBP Fajitas to create a partnership that will allow Fajita Pete's food to be enjoyed by even more people across Texas. This was combined with an expansion across Austin, with its third store opening in the area.
Its business isn't just Texas-based, either: Fajita Pete's has opened stores in Chicago and Pittsburgh, and has even taken its business to Puerto Rico. One of the secrets to its ability to expand so rapidly is its willingness to adapt and reinvent, as evidenced through its recent embrace of AI technology to improve its catering services. 10.
Taco Palenque Taco Palenque has a pretty storied history. The chain was created in 1987 by Juan Francisco Ochoa Sr., the brains behind El Pollo Loco, the franchise prone to Christmas promotions .
It's no surprise that someone who knows how to operate a successful chain of Mexican restaurants managed to manifest a hit with his new restaurant — but what's fairly surprising is how gently it's grown. In nearly 40 years of operation, Taco Palenque has grown to a size of just a few dozen restaurants, which has allowed it to keep that neighborhood feel while still being a success across Texas. However, it looks as though the next few years are gonna be pretty big ones for Taco Palenque.
The restaurant has identified itself recently as being in a growth phase, seeing the opening of several new restaurants. It's also ready to open even more: The chain has multiple new units due to open throughout 2025, which is in a sense an announcement of its commitment to begin expanding more rapidly. While these units are currently all Texas-based, it'll be exciting to see how far the Taco Palenque name can stretch in the future.
11. BURRITOBAR Get ready to see the name BURRITOBAR everywhere in the near future. This burrito chain is relatively unknown as yet in the United States, but it comes from a company that knows a lot about burritos: Canada's barBURRITO Fresh Mexican Grill, the brains behind BURRITOBAR, is an established brand in the country with over 325 stores to its name.
The business set its sights on the United States in 2020 using the BURRITOBAR name, and gently started staking a claim to the market with its output. This has since culminated in some bright prospects for BURRITOBAR. In 2024 it signed a franchise agreement to open a massive 93 franchised restaurants in New Jersey, which followed other agreements made in different states.
This fairly sudden and incredibly confident expansion into the United States market makes BURRITOBAR not just one of the most prominent Mexican chain restaurants due to take over the US, but one of the restaurant chains most likely to dominate in 2025 in general. We've gotta admit, we hope it does well: If its menu is anything to go by, with a range of delectable-looking burritos and bowls, this place is gonna be a winner. 12.
District Taco If you haven't heard of District Taco yet, that could all be about to change pretty soon. The chain started life as a food truck way back in 2009 in Rosslyn, Virginia, created by Mexican immigrant Osiris Hoil. The passion for Hoil's food was enough for his concept to quickly begin expanding, and just 15 years later District Taco has locations across multiple different states in the mid-Atlantic region.
2024 was a particularly good year for the chain, in which it opened even more new units and invested more heavily in its marketing and guest experience. All of that laid the groundwork for years to come, which are looking to be pretty bright. In 2025, District Taco will take big steps to expand beyond its Northeastern roots, and is due to open a restaurant in Kissimmee, Florida.
This marks a confident escalation of the taco chain's operations which is in line with its longer-term ambitions. District Taco has dozens of other units in development, with the ultimate plan being for it to achieve 150 locations by 2030. 13.
Surcheros In a world of massive Mexican food chain restaurants, Surcheros is a bit of an underdog (well, at the moment at least). The chain was created in 2007 and its first restaurant was a local smash in Douglas, Georgia, and just a decade later, Surcheros began franchising. This led to eventual growth of the business, and now Surcheros has a total of 30 locations — which is admittedly pretty impressive, but is a little way off the thousands of units that some other Mexican chain joints have.
However, underdogs have an interesting habit of taking over eventually, folks, so don't write Surcheros off just yet. 2024 saw the chain opening almost 10 new locations, marking a big escalation of its size and operations. Looking ahead, 2025 looks to be even brighter, with no less than a dozen new restaurants planned.
Surcheros also has medium-term ambitions to open 100 new restaurants in just a few years. It seems like momentum is just starting to build for this brand, so keep your eyes peeled for a lot more from it in the immediate future. 14.
Rusty Taco Rusty Taco has been on a serious roll, folks. This chain had been suffering in recent years from a slight sense of stagnation, and while it originally flourished after first opening in 2010, things started to look a little stale after a while. That all changed when it received a shot in the arm in 2024, with a combination of multiple new location openings and a new president in the form of Daniel Smith.
Smith identified the need for Rusty Taco to look towards the future with a more energetic, reinvigorated feel, and rejigged his senior team to reflect his ambitions. This translated into a massive 40% increase in Rusty Taco's growth in 2024, which is no doubt going to position it well for the years to come. It's no surprise, really: Smith's leadership has seen a renewed focus on growth, with the need to do so sustainably being a key priority.
It's pretty incredible what new leadership can do for an established brand that's somewhat lost its way — particularly one that offers its tacos at a good price point, and in flavors that folks just love..
