Growing in the Restaurant Industry: Alabama Start-Up Taco Mama Expands to 17 Stores

Where we started: When Taco Mama founder Will Haver first met Chris Couch – a McGlinchey corporate lawyer and member of the firm’s Retail, Restaurants, and Resorts team – Will had a single taco restaurant and needed help negotiating an operating agreement with a business partner. “My business was small,” Will recalls, “so I really appreciated that Chris spent time getting to know me, getting to know my plans for the business, where I wanted to go.”

Our strategy – plus more: With the successful negotiation and implementation of that first operating agreement, Taco Mama was poised for growth. As more locations opened, the needs of the business changed. “As your business grows, you’re always looking to be better,” Will notes. “You implement new systems and processes and, from an organization standpoint, you get more sophisticated – with real estate, intellectual property agreements, employment contracts, everything.” From real estate leases to marketing programs to protecting the recipes and trademarks on which the Taco Mama brand is built, McGlinchey’s Retail, Restaurants, and Resorts team has collaborated to address the needs of the business as they arise.

Upshot: Today, the McGlinchey Retail, Restaurants, and Resorts team advises Taco Mama on corporate organization and governance, partnerships and joint ventures, corporate finance, intellectual property, real estate, employment, and investor relations as well as business strategy and risk mitigation. With locations throughout Alabama, the brand has now expanded into Tennessee and North Carolina.