Ghai Restaurants acquires 44 Taco Bell locations

Ghai Restaurants, a multi-unit franchisee out of California, recently acquired 44 Taco Bell locations in the Houston area, more than doubling its presence with the brand.

The company acquired the locations from the private-equity owner of Mas Restaurant Group. The deal gives Ghai 81 locations of the fast-food Mexican chain and around 260 overall. Ghai also operates Burger King locations along with Popeyes restaurants.

“This is a dream portfolio,” Harsh Ghai, CEO of Ghai Restaurants, said in an interview. “It’s a dream portfolio in a dream market.”

Ghai said that the company wanted to diversify its portfolio. Most of the 260 restaurants the franchisee operates are in California, where high labor costs have offset high average-unit volumes. The operator is still based in California, but felt it was time to balance the company’s portfolio by opening in states where profitability is higher.

But Ghai Restaurants was also eager to buy more Taco Bell locations. The fast-food Mexican chain has been the most consistently performing large publicly traded restaurant chain in the U.S. It has had just one negative same-store sales quarter—in the middle of the pandemic—over the past decade.

Harsh Ghai cited those consistent sales, as well as efforts to use AI and other technology to make kitchens more efficient along with Taco Bell’s digital sales growth. And he cited the company’s beverage investments.

Taco Bell plans to generate $5 billion in sales per year from beverages by 2030. “I know it’s going to happen,” Ghai said. “I don’t need to go out and build one of the hot beverage concepts, as great as they’re doing, because I know I can do it out of Taco Bell.”