Fiesta Restaurant Group facts for kids

Fiesta Restaurant Group is a company that owns restaurants. It's based in Dallas, Texas. Their main restaurant chain is Pollo Tropical, which you can find mostly in Florida. Fiesta Restaurant Group used to be part of another company called Carrols Restaurant Group. In 2012, it became its own separate company. Now, its shares are bought and sold on a stock market called NASDAQ under the symbol FRGI. In 2019, the company earned $661 million. It also employs over 10,000 people.

History

Becoming Independent

In 2011, a company called Carrols Restaurant Corp. decided to make a big change. They wanted to separate their Hispanic restaurant brands from their Burger King restaurants. The Hispanic brands were put into a new company called Fiesta Restaurant Group. This new company became a part of Carrols Restaurant Corp. for a short time.

In August 2011, Tim Taft was chosen to be the CEO of Fiesta Restaurant Group. By the end of 2011, Fiesta Restaurant Group's earnings had grown. In April 2012, Carrols Restaurant Corp. agreed to let Fiesta Restaurant Group become fully independent. This meant Fiesta would own Taco Cabana and Pollo Tropical on its own. The separation was completed on May 8, 2012. On that same day, Fiesta Restaurant Group, Inc. started selling its shares on the NASDAQ stock market. Its symbol there is FRGI.

Changes and Challenges

For a while, Fiesta Restaurant Group continued to own Taco Cabana. By early 2016, Fiesta had 162 company-owned Taco Cabana restaurants. They also had six Taco Cabana restaurants run by other businesses. In February 2016, Fiesta announced another plan. They said they would split their two brands, Taco Cabana and Pollo Tropical, into two separate companies. However, this plan was later stopped in September 2016.

In 2017, Taco Cabana saw a drop in sales. Fiesta said this was because they were doing less advertising. By July 2017, there were 176 Taco Cabana stores. On January 14, 2020, Fiesta Restaurant Group announced they would close 19 Taco Cabana restaurants in Texas right away. They said they needed to close stores that were losing a lot of money.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fiesta received $15 million in government loans. These loans were meant to help small businesses. Some people questioned these loans because Fiesta is a large company. A week later, the company decided to return all the money.

A New Chapter

The company's main office is in San Antonio, Texas. In July 2021, Fiesta Restaurant Group made another big announcement. They agreed to sell all of Taco Cabana Inc. to another company. The sale was for $85 million. This money was used to pay off the company's loans.