Mexican restaurant chain Chilango to expand in 2010
Chilango, the fast casual Mexican restaurant chain founded by Eric Partaker and Dan Houghton, will open two more sites outside the capital this year and is also planning to open a 'handful' of central London sites.
The first site, an 80-cover restaurant, will open at Bluewater shopping centre between House of Fraser and Next on March 13. It will be followed by a 60-cover restaurant in Brighton's North Lanes, in May.
Partaker told BigHospitality the company's current sites on London's Fleet Street and Upper Street were performing well, taking more than £1m in revenue per year and that the company's third site at Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield was also performing in line with expectations.
Chilango's new restaurant sites will serve the same style of Mexican street food with an average price of £5 per head. Traditional dishes such as burritos and tacos feature on the menu and dishes are prepared fresh in front of customers.
Chilango goal
Partaker said: "Our goal as a company is to lighten up people's lives with the flavours of modern Mexico. We use the best quality ingredients we can find and invest the time into treating them right and preparing them right.
"I think we have a really lovely down to earth, vibrant brand that is working well.
"We are looking at a handful of central London sites to open in 2010, but our model has always been to open up one site at a time and not open the next until we are comfortable with the way things are going at the last one."
The trend for Mexican restaurants is continuing to grow in the UK. Wahaca, the chain started by Masterchef winner Thomasina Myers, opened its third site last year and US chain Chipotle is planning to open its first UK site on Charing Cross Road this spring.
