QDOBA announced Wednesday that it has partnered with San Diego-based multi-unit restaurant operator Hyperion Brands, LLC to develop the new locations. The company has not yet disclosed specific neighborhoods, addresses or an opening timeline for the restaurants, meaning it remains unclear how quickly the 17-unit expansion will roll out or which corners of the county will be targeted first.
"California is a priority growth market for QDOBA," QDOBA Chief Development Officer Jeremy Vitaro said in announcing the deal, describing Hyperion as an experienced operator with the advantage of knowing the San Diego market. Hyperion is led by CEO and co-founder Cesar Shih, who is already a franchise owner and multi-unit operator of Habit Burger & Grill restaurants.
"As a San Diego based operator, we're looking forward to bringing QDOBA's bold flavors and great value to our guests across the region," Shih said. The deal is part of a much larger expansion campaign for QDOBA, which currently has approximately 875 restaurants and says it ultimately intends to more than double its footprint to roughly 2,000 locations, with a goal of opening around 100 restaurants annually in the years ahead.
Despite QDOBA's longstanding connection to San Diego, its current local footprint is surprisingly small. The company's official locator lists three restaurants within the City of San Diego: its primary publicly accessible restaurant at QDOBA Mexican Eats in Mission Valley at 1620C Camino De La Reina, another inside San Diego International Airport, and a location on Naval Base San Diego. There are also two additional nontraditional QDOBA outposts in North County. One operates aboard Camp Pendleton, while another is located on the Cal State San Marcos campus.
That makes the new agreement particularly significant. If all 17 planned restaurants open in addition to the existing locations, QDOBA could go from a brand many San Diegans primarily encounter at an airport, military installation or college campus to a much more visible competitor in one of America's most fiercely contested markets for Mexican food.
And San Diego is an interesting place for QDOBA to make that bet. The chain's model is decidedly different from the taco shops, mariscos restaurants and family-owned Mexican eateries that define much of the region's food culture. QDOBA occupies the customizable fast-casual category dominated nationally by Chipotle, selling build-your-own burritos, bowls, tacos, quesadillas, nachos and salads. Among its most heavily promoted distinctions is that the first portion of its signature three-cheese queso and hand-crafted guacamole can be added to create-your-own entrées without an additional charge.
Interestingly, QDOBA and Chipotle share an origin story well before becoming national competitors: both were born in Denver. Chipotle opened there in 1993, while restaurateur Anthony Miller and chef Robert Hauser launched what would eventually become QDOBA in 1995 as Zuma Fresh Mexican Grill. The concept was renamed Z-Teca in 1997 before adopting the QDOBA name in 1999.
San Diego entered the story in a much bigger way in 2003, when locally headquartered Jack in the Box acquired QDOBA, which then had only 85 locations across 16 states and approximately $65 million in systemwide sales. Jack in the Box spent the next 15 years building the chain before selling it in March 2018 to funds affiliated with Apollo Global Management for approximately $305 million in cash. By that point, QDOBA had grown beyond 700 restaurants and generated more than $820 million in systemwide fiscal 2017 sales.
The ownership changed again in 2022, when Los Angeles-based private equity firm Butterfly acquired QDOBA. Under its current ownership, the company has embarked on a much more aggressive franchise-led growth strategy, with California among its major targets.
The San Diego deal follows another development agreement announced earlier this year to expand QDOBA into California's Ventura and Santa Barbara markets. The company has also identified Bakersfield, Sacramento, San Bernardino and the Bay Area as California territories where it sees additional opportunity.
For San Diego, the unanswered question is where those 17 restaurants are actually going. QDOBA's announcement describes the territory broadly as San Diego County and does not identify individual communities, suggesting the eventual expansion could stretch from the South Bay through central San Diego and into North County. No leases or specific opening dates were announced with the development agreement, so a 17-unit deal should not be confused with 17 restaurants already under construction.
Still, the commitment represents a dramatic increase over QDOBA's current handful of local outposts. And for a chain that spent 15 years under the ownership of one of San Diego's most recognizable restaurant companies, QDOBA may soon have a much bigger presence in its former corporate hometown than it ever has before.
For more information about QDOBA, visit qdoba.com.
Originally published on September 9, 2026.
