Tijuana Flats

Tijuana Flats

150px "Something might offend you, but it will never be the food."
Type	Private
Industry	Restaurants
Founded	1995
Area served	Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Indiana
Key people	Brad Kaemmer, CEO
Number of employees	3,000(2015)
Website	www.tijuanaflats.com

Tijuana Flats is an American restaurant chain serving Tex-Mex cuisine. It has 108 locations throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Indiana. Tijuana Flats is known for its hot sauce bars, murals and off-beat culture. Customers order at the front counter, and are served after sitting. The restaurants are fast-casual hybrids, being best known for outstanding service, quality and cleanliness.

Tijuana Flats uses zero trans-fatty acids (TFA) cooking oils, 100 percent hormone free, white meat chicken, fresh produce and all of its menu items have been lard free. Flour or whole-wheat tortilla options are available for select items. This restaurant features a “Power Lite” selection, offering low-fat cheese and fat-free sour cream in any menu item.

The restaurant was founded in 1995 by University of Central Florida graduate Brian Wheeler with $20,000 in loans. The company had 18 locations before expanding out-of-state in 2004. Tijuana Flats started out as a franchise, but switched to a corporate-owned model for new stores in 2007.

History

Tijuana Flats was started by University of Central Florida graduate, Brian Wheeler, in 1995 in Winter Park, Florida. It was modeled after Burrito Brothers, a Mexican restaurant in Gainesville, Florida and funded with $20,000 in borrowed money from Wheeler's family. Students from Wheeler's former college made up some of the restaurant's early customers. Wheeler tried to create his own signature hot-sauce unsuccessfully before hiring Edgewater to formulate the restaurant's sauce brand, "Smack My Ass & Call Me Sally." When Wheeler received an order to have 25 cases of the sauce shipped to California, he set up a separate company called Tijuana Flats Hot Foods Inc. as a hot sauce business.

After the third location was opened, a semi-retired restaurant executive, Camp Fitch, was invited to Tijuana Flats by his golf partner. In 1999, Fitch invested in the company and was appointed its CEO to expand the chain nationally. When the fourth location opened, the founder's dad, Chester Wheeler, was reimbursed for his $20,000 loan used to start the company and joined as the CFO.

Tijuana Flats had six locations by 2001, which grew to 18 locations in 2004 and 65 by 2009. In 2005, Tijuana Flats built its first training center for branch managers in Winter Park. In 2007, Tijuana Flats shifted from a franchise model to corporate-owned stores. The chain re-purchased some of its under-performing franchise locations. That same year Tijuana Flats created its non-profit arm, the Just in Queso Foundation. The Foundation donated $46,000 to remodel the home of a handicapped war vet and started donating profits from the Just in Queso hot sauce to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

In 2011, Tijuana Flats updated its menu with fish tacos, "Norrito" bowls and Bangin Chicken entrees, salads and tostadas. In 2012 Tijuana Flats donated the proceeds from their seasonal hot sauces to Kids Beating Cancer and gave out free entrees to teachers after a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut on December 27.

Restaurants

File:Tijuana Flats Sauce Bar.jpg

A hot sauce bar from Tijuana Flats

Tijuana Flats is a "fast casual" hybrid, where customers order at the counter and seat themselves, but are served at their table afterwards. It serves burritos, chimichangas, tacos, nachos, flautas and other Mexican food. There are health options for low-fat cheese, fat-free sour cream and whole-wheat tortillas. It also has vegetarian and "wet" options, a children's menu and take-out. As of 2008, the average check was $8 at lunch and $13 at dinner. The restaurant has 100 locations in Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Tijuana Flats restaurant locations have murals and the company uses unusual slogans like "embrace the strange and unexplained" and "hot is the new cool." The restaurants are known for their salsa bars, artwork and a hot sauce brand called "Smack My Ass & Call Me Sally." 98 percent of revenues from the Just in Queso hot sauce are donated to charitable causes like the American Red Cross, Soldiers Angels and Frontline Head Start. The hot sauce bar has 13 sauces and customers under eighteen years old aren't allowed at the bar.

External links

• Tijuana Flats official website

• http://www.tijuanaflats.com
• Hayes, J. (2001). Menu specials, simplified operations heat up Tijuana Flats brand. Nation's Restaurant News, 35(26), 26.
• Hayes, J. (2003). Big-burrito chain Tijuana Flats spices up plans for expansion. Nation's Restaurant News, 37(50), 28.