According to QSR, Gong Cha signed a 50-unit deal that will bring new locations to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.
What Now Austin spoke with Brett Walker, managing member of Bakers Acres & Cattle Company (BACC), the franchise group behind the deal, and asked how many of the 50 planned locations would land in Austin. “There’ll actually be more in Houston. That’s really the only numbers that I can disclose right now” Walker said, declining to give an exact breakdown for the other three markets at this moment.
Walker confirm that BACC has already taken ownership of four existing Gong Cha locations, three of them in Austin, as part of the same agreement. “We’ve already acquired four locations, three in Austin and one in San Antonio,” Walker told What Now Austin, identifying the Austin stores as The Domain, Anna Plaza, and Dobie Hall near the University of Texas.
The broader agreement, a seven-year exclusive area development deal, marks the largest direct franchising deal in Gong Cha’s history.
BACC, a Houston-based, multi-generational family business, entered franchising in 2015 with Nothing Bundt Cakes and has since built a bakery platform across Greater Houston.
Walker described the company as more than a boba operator. “We’re a small family office that invests in real estate, cattle, bakeries, and boba,” he said. “We’re not just about tea. We’re also all about our family.”
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