London restaurant brand tastes success with £10m funding following AIM listing

A London headquartered Mexican restaurant brand has secured £10m of funding from its banking partner, Santander UK, following its AIM listing.

Tortilla is the UK’s largest fast-casual Mexican restaurant brand, offering a high-quality, affordable and freshly prepared California-style Mexican menu.

The business plans to accelerate its growth through the roll out of new sites, franchising opportunities, cloud kitchens, and strategic partnerships. In the UK it is targeting the launch of about 45 new sites over the next five years.

Tortilla opened its first site in Islington, London in 2007 and now has 62 sites, including 52 in the UK, two of which are franchised to Select Service Partners UK Limited, and ten franchised sites in the Middle East.

It offers customers eat in, take away and click and collect options at its restaurants, and delivery through its partnership with Deliveroo in the UK.

Andy Naylor, CFO, Tortilla, said: “Santander has provided financing to Tortilla since 2012 and has remained a supportive partner as the business has continued to grow.

“This new facility provides us with the balance sheet flexibility to pursue our exciting growth plans as an AIM-listed company.”

Julian Smith, director, Santander UK, commented: “Tortilla has grown significantly since it first started banking with Santander UK in 2012 as a business with just eight sites in the UK, all of which were in London.

“We have been pleased to support Tortilla’s impressive expansion over the past nine years and look forward to continuing to be its banking partner during the next exciting growth phase as an AIM-listed company.”