Guac Mexi Grill is marking its 10th anniversary with 56 locations across Canada and plans to continue expanding at a pace of 10 to 15 restaurants a year over the next five years.
The Oakville, Ont.-based Tex-Mex chain, founded by CEO Trushna Makadia in 2016 after she spent a decade as a Extreme Pita franchise owner, is also preparing to open its first U.S. location and has begun expanding internationally.
Makadia launched Guac Mexi Grill after identifying an opportunity in the Tex-Mex market, with the company’s recipes, sauces and spices developed in-house. The franchise-only business has no corporate locations, and its original Brantford restaurant remains open under franchise ownership.
Steady growth over the years
Khemie Khan, Head of Marketing, said the company’s growth has been steady overall, despite a slowdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with much of its early expansion driven by word of mouth and customers interested in opening their own locations.
The company is also undertaking a broader rebrand, including its website and restaurant interiors, as it prepares for further growth. Guac Mexi Grill’s preferred restaurant format is between 1,000 and 1,400 square feet, with a focus on inline or end-cap locations that include seating and space for on-site cooking.
Khan said the company is positioning itself around Tex-Mex cuisine, zero preservatives and food prepared in-house each day, while providing franchisees with marketing, training, operational and franchise development support.
The company, which is based in Oakville, Ontario, opened its first location in 2016 in Brantford, Ontario. It will also be expanding into Texas in the near future.
“So 10 years ago, our owner, Trushna Makadia, she is the one who founded Guac Mexi Grill. She was a franchise owner of Pita Pit for 10 years before that, so an owner-operator herself. She’s been in the system. She knows the ins and outs. She’s been behind the counter,” said Khan.
“She stepped out of that with the intention of building something that’s her own. And she found the gap with Tex-Mex food, and hence the birth of Guac Mexi Grill.
“Every recipe that you have in our stores, everything that you see, every item, has been curated by Trushna. All the spices, all sauces, every recipe is owned by Trushna. So everything that we do is truly house made, truly a house recipe, something that is privately ours altogether at Guac.
“So that’s the backstory. Really wholesome, as Trushna is an immigrant herself to Canada, and having that experience of working behind the scenes and behind the counter, growing her brand to 56 locations in under 10 years.”
Franchise-owned model
All locations are owned by franchisees.
“If you take a look at just from our inception to now, we had that slowdown period due to COVID. But right before COVID, it was just exponential growth. That’s where we had that ramp-up. We had everyone onboarded. There was interest in the market,” said Khan.
“Without being at conventions, people were visiting Guac and interested in opening their own Guac after trying the food themselves. So it really came from that word-of-mouth opportunity. Post-COVID, we did have a slowdown in our growth, but still steady enough to now say that we’re expanding in India and U.S.”
She said that over the next five years the brand is looking at growth of 10 to 15 locations every single year.
“We are looking at massive expansion, and where we are. We’re using our leverage in the States as well to pull and drive that growth. As we launch our brand in the States, that’s where we’re looking to also create those partnerships so that we can see that growth duplicate itself as what we’ve seen over the last 10 years.”
Major rebranding initiative
Just under a year ago, the brand started to make some big changes throughout the company so that it could truly highlight who Guac is.
“And who we are is a Tex-Mex brand. We serve Mexican food . . . We are very keen, and we are very specific to say we offer Tex-Mex cuisine because we don’t offer an authentic Mexican culture. That is the first thing that differentiates Guac Mexi Grill, is our honesty and transparency to our customers in who we are and what we have to offer.
“Second to that is that we do believe in zero preservatives. Our food, though we like to stay away from the key word fresh because everyone uses it out there, we like to stay away from it because we really are… It’s all real ingredients. It all is real food. We prep everything in-house every day. Part of our core concept is cooking every single meal every day, so it’s right there in front of you. You feel like you’re getting that boutique service, but in a fast-paced environment.”
The ideal format for the brand is a store of between 1,000 to 1,400 square feet.
“Ideally, we’re looking for an inline or end cap unit. We do require that seating area. We want to be sure that our customers have that seating space and opportunity, but it’s also a fast-casual environment.
“We do live cooking on-site. We do not like to store overnight, so everything is live cooking on-site every single day.
“We’re very diverse in our current portfolio. We have multi-unit operators as well as first-time business owners, first-time restaurant owners, and those who have multiple brands under their portfolio. It’s a very diverse market altogether within Guac, and we’re very open. We have the marketing and training and operational support to help each of these groups and each of these types of operations so that they can see that success from day one.”
In the past year, the company website and stores were freshed up and rebuilt as it rebranded. As stores come up to renewal, as stores see the benefit in the renewed structure, they will be renovating all of their stores.
“It’s contemporary. It has that wooden, authentic feel there. So you have that industrial vibe, moving away from that fast-food-paced type of look and feel.“
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