Taco Cabana Closing 19 Texas Restaurants, 8 In DFW Area Effective Immediately
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas-based Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. announced Monday it is closing 19 of its Taco Cabana restaurants in Texas, effective immediately.
Eight of those restaurants are in the DFW area, including ones in Allen, Dallas, Denton, Greenville, North Richland Hills and Hurst along with two in Frisco.
That leaves 38 remaining Taco Cabanas in the area.
Nearly all employees impacted by the closures will be offered positions at other Taco Cabana locations, the company said in a news release.
"During the fourth quarter, our Taco Cabana team began implementation of a margin improvement plan that we expect to improve restaurant-level Adjusted EBITDA margins by approximately 200 to 300 basis points in 2020 vs. 2019. The margin improvement plan includes efficiency initiatives in operations across food and operating expense categories and the closure of 19 underperforming restaurants in Texas. These closures eliminate all stores with significant losses, which we expect will result in a highly viable portfolio of restaurants,: Fiesta President and Chief Executive Officer Richard Stockinger.
Stockinger concluded, "We continue to make progress on sales building initiatives across both Pollo Tropical and Taco Cabana in off premise sales, including catering, online and delivery. In addition, as our new senior management team enters their first full year together, we are optimistic about improving comparable restaurant sales at both brands in 2020."
The 19 Taco Cabana restaurants contributed approximately $24.5 million in restaurant sales and an estimated $4.2 million in restaurant level pre-tax operating losses, including $2.0 million in depreciation expense, for the twelve months ended December 29, 2019, the company said.