Terms of James' investment were not disclosed, but the timing is significant. Mike's Red Tacos says it now has more than 300 franchise locations in development nationwide, an extraordinary leap for a business that founder Mike Touma launched from a San Diego food truck only five years ago.
For longtime SanDiegoVille readers, the investment is also a remarkable confirmation of a story that has been developing behind the scenes for nearly a year. In November 2025, SanDiegoVille reported that Mike's Red Tacos was assembling experienced restaurant investors and franchise operators with connections to Dave's Hot Chicken, essentially positioning the San Diego birria concept to follow the same playbook that transformed Dave's from a Los Angeles parking-lot pop-up into a national phenomenon. Now one of the investors who helped fuel Dave's rise has joined Mike's too.
James and his longtime investment partner Main Street Advisors previously invested in Dave's Hot Chicken, which finished 2025 with 358 restaurants before Roark Capital acquired the rapidly growing chain in a deal valued at approximately $1 billion. James was also an early investor in Blaze Pizza, giving the NBA superstar a restaurant investment history that extends well beyond simply attaching his name to a celebrity-backed food concept.
The connections run even deeper. Mike's Red Tacos is chaired by Bill Phelps, the cofounder of Wetzel's Pretzels who later became a founding investor in Blaze Pizza and served as an investor and chief executive at Dave's Hot Chicken. Phelps' involvement means he and James have already participated in two of the restaurant industry's more notable growth stories before reuniting around Mike's Red Tacos.
Mike's has also installed Andrew Feghali, the first Dave's Hot Chicken franchisee, as chief executive officer, while Touma has transitioned into the role of chief brand officer. Feghali became an early Mike's investor and board member alongside Phelps through their Four Wall Partners investment and advisory firm.
The company has surrounded them with executives carrying experience from major restaurant brands including Dunkin', Baskin-Robbins, Little Caesars, Five Guys, Smashburger, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Marie Callender's and Ruby's Diner. The strategy makes clear that Mike's is no longer being built simply as a successful San Diego restaurant group - it is being constructed as a potentially national fast-casual brand.
James said the appeal extends beyond the food.
"I love tacos, and I especially love how they bring people together to create traditions and share great moments around the table with family and friends," James said in announcing the investment. He added that Mike's has an experienced team "building something authentic with a long-term vision," saying he wanted to help bring the experience to additional communities.
James' association with tacos is already part of his public persona. His enthusiastic "Taco Tuesday" social-media posts became a running phenomenon among fans, and in 2019 his company unsuccessfully sought federal trademark registration for the phrase "Taco Tuesday," later becoming involved in efforts surrounding the phrase's trademark status.
For Touma, however, landing James as an investor represents something considerably larger than a celebrity endorsement.
"Before anyone knew our name, before we opened restaurants, and before we ever talked about franchising, people were lining up because they loved the birria," Touma said in announcing the deal. "Having LeBron believe in what we're building and invest in our future is an incredible honor and a powerful validation of our brand and vision."
That story began in San Diego in 2021, when Touma launched Mike's Red Tacos as a food truck after becoming fascinated with birria during the dish's explosive rise on social media. The truck developed lines and frequently sold out before Touma opened the company's first permanent restaurant in Clairemont Mesa in August 2022.
Mike's subsequently expanded locally, developing a menu centered around slow-braised beef birria and consommé but extending the formula into burritos, loaded fries and nachos, birria ramen and other creations. The company's distinctive branding and photogenic food helped it build a social-media following while its original restaurant landed on Yelp's Top 100 Places to Eat in the United States list in 2023. Today, Mike's operates San Diego restaurants in Clairemont Mesa, Point Loma and Mira Mesa, but the next phase is much larger than San Diego.
The company initially announced franchise agreements representing more than 200 planned restaurants across California, Texas, the Midwest, New England and other markets. Those agreements involve experienced multi-unit operators associated with brands including Dave's Hot Chicken, Jersey Mike's, Blaze Pizza, Dunkin', Little Caesars, Carl's Jr. and Wetzel's Pretzels, and the development pipeline has since grown beyond 300 proposed locations. Mike's next major step will come in Southern California. The company is preparing its first Los Angeles-area restaurant at 899 E. Del Mar Boulevard in Pasadena, with the opening expected in the coming weeks.
The parallels with Dave's Hot Chicken are increasingly difficult to ignore. Both began as small Southern California street-food concepts centered around a highly recognizable specialty, built passionate followings around visually distinctive food, and then attracted experienced restaurant operators and investors who believed the concepts could be reproduced nationally.
There is also a strategic similarity in the food itself. Phelps previously compared birria's opportunity within the enormous Mexican-food category to the niche Dave's exploited with Nashville hot chicken, arguing that a focused concept can become strongly associated with one increasingly popular food rather than attempting to compete as another generalized Mexican restaurant.
Birria certainly isn't confined to San Diego anymore. Industry research cited by QSR indicates the dish now appears on roughly 4% of restaurant menus nationwide, more than quadrupling its presence over a four-year period.
Mike's challenge will be proving that the cult appeal of its San Diego restaurants can survive the leap from a handful of company stores to hundreds of franchised locations. Restaurant history is littered with regional favorites that expanded too quickly, sacrificed quality or discovered that what works brilliantly in one market doesn't necessarily translate nationwide.
Its new leadership says avoiding that trap is central to the strategy. Rather than signing inexperienced franchisees simply to accumulate locations, Mike's says it is emphasizing established multi-unit restaurant operators, store-level economics and the infrastructure necessary to preserve the product as the company scales.
"We're not interested in trend-chasing brands," Feghali said. "We're interested in founders building something enduring."
Five years ago, Mike's Red Tacos was a San Diego food truck with customers lining up for birria. Today it has LeBron James among its investors, veterans of Dave's Hot Chicken and other national chains steering its expansion, and agreements for hundreds of future restaurants around the country.
SanDiegoVille wondered last year whether Mike's Red Tacos was preparing to replicate the Dave's Hot Chicken playbook. With one of Dave's most famous investors now putting his own money behind the San Diego-born taco brand, that plan has become considerably easier to see.
For more information, visit mikesredtacos.com.
Originally published on September 15, 2026.