Guzman y Gomez announced on May 22 it will exit the US market, closing all eight of its Chicago stores immediately due to poor performance and stiff competition in Mexican fast food [1, 2].
The company entered the US in 2020 but deemed its US operations "not acceptable," prompting the decision to withdraw [1, 3, 2]. Founder and co-CEO Steven Marks said, "Having spent the last three months in the US, I realised this was going to take significantly more time and capital than we had expected." He added, "The current performance of the U.S. business could not justify continued investment of shareholder capital" [1, 2].
The exit will cost Guzman y Gomez up to USD 40 million in one-off expenses related to store closures and withdrawal [1]. The US market has been described as a "graveyard" for Australian fast-food brands, with stiff Mexican food competition and similar failures by other Australian chains such as Crust Gourmet Pizza and Oporto [1].
Analysts welcomed the exit. Michael Toner of RBC Capital Markets said, "On current unit economics, we believe the US business had very low prospects of being successful, and the losses of the business were weighing down the earnings of the group so the sooner exit than anticipated is positive" [1]. Citi analysts Sam Teeger and Eileen Li said, "We are supportive of today’s decision to exit the US market given we had been skeptical about the company’s US prospects" [2].
At the end of 2025, Guzman y Gomez operated about 237 stores in Australia, though sources vary slightly with an estimate of 224 stores as of June 2025 [1, 3, 2]. The company plans to focus on expanding its footprint at home and in Asia, specifically in Singapore and Japan [1, 3, 2]. Shares of Guzman y Gomez surged about 20% on the day of the announcement [2].
