The restaurant investors behind the success of Dave’s Hot Chicken are making a new nationwide bet on the next-hottest restaurant trend: birria.
Mike’s Red Tacos, a San Diego-based birria chain with just two locations, plans to announce on Tuesday a new franchising initiative that will build hundreds of restaurants across the U.S., with support from early-stage backers Bill Phelps and Andrew Feghali, CNBC can report.
Financial terms of their investment, which took place in early 2025, were not disclosed.
“We just saw that this was a brand and a concept that really had legs to it,” Phelps told CNBC. “And then the critical thing is, we brought down prospective franchisees. ... Everyone gave it the thumbs up.”
Phelps said he had never heard of birria before Feghali introduced him to Mike’s.
