Moe's Southwest Grill

Moe's Southwest Grill

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Fast casual restaurant
Founded	Atlanta, Georgia, United States 2000 (2000)
Headquarters	Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Number of locations	600+ ( 2015)
Area served	North America
Key people	Paul Damico (President)[1]
Products	Tacos, Burritos, Quesadillas, Stacks, Nachos, Burrito Bowls, White Rice with a southwest seasoning and other Southwestern fare
Parent	Focus Brands
Website	moes.com

Moe's Southwest Grill, referred to informally as Moe's, was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 2000,^[2] by Raving Brands. In August 2007, the brand was purchased by Focus Brands.^[3] As of 2015, there were about 600 locations in operation in 38 states.^[4] As of July 14, 2014 the number of Moe's locations increased to over 600 in the US after signing 120 new franchises in six months.^[5] According to the 2016 Harris Poll EquiTrend survey, Moe's is the "Fast Casual Mexican Restaurant of the Year", passing former top restaurant Chipotle Mexican Grill even with less than half the number of locations as Chipotle has.^[6][7]

Fare

Many of the menu items have names drawn from popular culture such as:

• "Art Vandalay" and "Close Talker" (both from the television series Seinfeld, where "Art Vandalay" refers to George's alias as an architect and importer/exporter. "Close Talker" refers to Elaine's boyfriend who talks unusually close to people.)^[8]
• "Who is Kaiser Salsa", a reference to the infamous and mysterious villain in The Usual Suspects.
• "El Guapo's Infamous Salsa", named after the villain in the movie Three Amigos.
• The "Triple Lindy" burrito (no longer on the menu), a reference to the movie Back to School.
• The "John Coctostan" quesadilla, a reference to the movie Fletch.
• The "Billy Barou" nachos, a reference to the movie Caddyshack.
• The "Ruprict" may be a mistaken reference to Steve Martin's character "Ruprecht" in a scene from the movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
• The "Julia Gulia" stack, a reference to the movie The Wedding Singer
• The "Earmuffs" burrito bowl, a reference to the movie Old School
• The "Wrong Doug" stack, a reference to the movie The Hangover where the main characters mistake comedian Mike Epps of color named Doug for their Caucasian friend.

International locations

Garden Hills location
"the very first Moe's on earth"

Moe's has locations in Turkey and Russia. According to the company 'newsroom' website (moessouthwestgrill.wordpress.com), franchise partners also exist in Costa Rica ^[9] and Jamaica.^[10]

Turkey

In 2011 Moe's opened its first location outside the United States in Turkey.^[11]

Russia

In September 2012 Moe's opened its first Russian franchise^[12] located in the center of Moscow near the Kremlin on Pyatnitskaya Street.^[13][14]

References

External links

• Official website
• Moe's Newsroom