Guzman Y Gomez Just Took A $44M Injection Of Cash To Take On The US

Contributor: PEDESTRIAN.TV

I went to Tokyo expecting that the second I stepped onto the street, I would be overwhelmed with a Lost in Translation-esque inability to understand my surroundings. I did not anticipate that, after getting on a series of trains from the airport and stepping out of the station in Harajuku, I would almost immediately be greeted by a Guzman y Gomez. The first Guzman opened in Newtown in 2006, now there are over 100 locations in Australia and several stores in Singapore and Japan. They are basically bloody everywhere, and that everywhere is set to include the US very soon, according to the Australian Financial Review.

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As the AFR is reporting, investment firm TDM Growth Partners has bought a $44 million stake in the company as part of a push for Guzman to take hold in the US, starting with a store in Chicago early next year.

Guzman CEO Steven Marks told the AFR that currently the US doesn’t have anything like Guzman y Gomez, although it’s unclear what makes Guzman y Gomez distinct from the existing US Mexican ‘fast casual’ franchises like Taco Bell, Chipotle, Qdoba, Taco John’s, or Del Taco.

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