Pollo Tropical owner secures $325M investment

Authentic Restaurant Brands said the funding from Trimontium would bring new resources to “hometown hero” brands.

Authentic Restaurant Brands, the parent company of Pollo Tropical, Tavern in the Square, P.J. Whelihan’s, Mambo Seafood and Primanti Bros, secured a $325 million investment from Trimontium to support expansion, according to a Thursday press release .

The financing arrangement “spans debt, hybrid and equity instruments within a single package, with capital available over time as growth opportunities are identified,” according to Trimontium.

ARB positions itself as a resource for “local American ‘hometown hero’ brands with deep community roots, loyal customers and a proven business mode,” to which it brings the technology, analytics tools and corporate capabilities available to a larger national system.

“We buy brands people love, we keep the operators who built them and we give them the tools to scale efficiently and thoughtfully,” Alex Macedo, ARB’s co-founder, CEO and chairman said. “This capital lets us do more of that, faster.”

One example of that strategy is Pollo Tropical, a regional brand concentrated in Florida that ARB acquired in 2023 . At the time of the acquisition, Pollo Tropical had seen sustained same-store sales growth. QSR Magazine reported earlier this year that that growth continued under ARB’s ownership, and that investments in the brand helped improve its unit economics.

Trimontium, a British investment firm, is the latest in a string of major private investors to back U.S. restaurant companies in 2026. Golub Capital invested in Church’s Texas Chicken’s growth earlier this year , while Serruya Private Equity acquired Bonchon’s U.S. operations in August .