Texas Chicken to open 20 new branches in NZ

Texas Chicken is set to open 20 new restaurants across New Zealand over the next decade.

The US franchise currently has five New Zealand locations, four in Auckland and one in Hamilton.

George Constantinou, the brand’s NZ franchisee, told 1News the plan is to build 20 new restaurants over the next 10 years, with two or three added each year and the first new venues arriving in 2023.

“We’re looking to develop the brand across all of New Zealand, and that’s 20 new restaurants, North and South Island,” he said. “We’ve got a pretty rapid expansion plan which we think we can execute quite well, mainly focusing on the major centres and going from there.”

He wouldn’t give specific locations but said the first will be “in the north of the North Island, so you can probably cut it down”.

Constantinou, who’s originally from Papua New Guinea but now lives in Brisbane, is executive director of the Constantinou Group of Companies, which invests in a number of hospitality, construction and property businesses around the South Pacific.

“It’s pretty exciting, we’ve been with the brand for a while now and we’re very comfortable with the brand. We’re committed to developing it and making sure we can do it justice at the end of the day,” he said of Texas Chicken.

“It would be great if we could do it earlier but we’re doing it in a slow, steady operation.”

He added that every restaurant would hire around 25 to 40 new employees.

“Honestly, we’re just wanting to sell our chicken to New Zealanders… and bring what I like about the brand – about the way we cook things, how we cook things, the taste – to the rest of New Zealand.”