Freebirds World Burrito

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Freebirds World Burrito (often just Freebirds) is a privately held chain of burrito restaurants in Texas.

[edit] History

The first Freebirds store was founded in 1987 in Santa Barbara, California, by Mark Orfalea. [1] After researching locations wide, and opening his first Texas store in 1990, Orfalea sold the concept and rights to Pierre Dube, a college friend. The first Freebirds location in Texas was set up by Orfalea across the street from the campus of Texas A&M University in 1990. As of 2006, it has expanded to fifteen locations in Texas. The original Freebirds (of significantly different style than its newer counterparts) is still located in Santa Barbara, California beside the UCSB campus.

Freebirds is often credited^{[citation needed]} with popularizing the trend of "large burrito" restaurants, that feature burritos made from 11 inch or greater tortillas, with an assortment of meats, cheeses, vegetables and sauces. Similar franchises that were founded after Freebirds include Chipotle Mexican Grill (in 1993) and Qdoba Mexican Grill (in 1995). Both Chipotle and Qdoba have grown more quickly than Freebirds (originally limited only to the College Station area).

[edit] Customer loyalty

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"Libby" at the Tech Ridge location in Austin, Texas

Freebirds has developed staunch customer loyalty, with patrons praising the quality of the food, the atmosphere, and the service.^{[citation needed]} The food features options unavailable at other burrito restaurants, including barbeque sauce and "Death Sauce," a super-spicy sauce. The atmosphere is fun, with each restaurant featuring a different signature piece including mockup of the Statue of Liberty riding a full-sized custom-built motorcycle hanging from the ceiling or a mini roller coaster with Willie Nelson, Racer X and Barbara Bush as passengers. Customers are also encouraged to create and leavealuminum foil sculptures along the walls usingthe same foil used to wrap the burritos. Freebirds offers higher pay and more benefits for its employees than other fast casual restaurants^{[citation needed]}: 401(k) with company match, retention bonuses and paid time off.

Another contributing factor to customer loyalty, at least in the original three College Station locations, is the restaurant's efforts to tie itself into the physical history of the location. Its first location is on Northgate, across the street from the Texas A&M Campus in the same strip center as the famed Dixie Chicken and Duddley's Draw bars. Another of its locations in College Station was actually built from bricks reclaimed from the tearings-down of two of Texas A&M's oldest student dormitory buildings: Puryear and Law. A plaque on an inside wall of the building commemorates this usage of the materials.

Since many of their patrons were originally students from Texas A&M, that loyalty continued as Freebirds built franchises in cities with large concentrations of A&M alumni (Dallas, Houston and Austin at first; Fort Worth, San Antonio and Lubbock have since been added). The popularity of the restaurants is staggering, with 1,700 burritos being sold on the Dallas franchise's opening day alone.^{[citation needed]} Wait times of over an hour are not uncommon, especially following Texas A&M home football games.^{[citation needed]}