Qdoba ( ) is a chain of fast casual restaurants in the United States and Canada serving Mexican-style cuisine. After spending 15 years as a wholly owned subsidiary of Jack in the Box, the company was sold to a consortium of funds led by Apollo Global Management in March 2018. At the time of the sale in 2018, Qdoba had more than 700 locations in 47 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada. In October 2022 Qdoba was acquired by Butterfly Equity. History This chain traces its origins to the opening of the Zuma Fresh Mexican Grill in 1995 by Colorado native Anthony Miller and partner Robert Hauser at Grant Street and Sixth Avenue in Denver which is still in operation. Miller and Hauser met in New York City, where Miller was an investment banker with Merrill Lynch when Hauser was attending the Culinary Institute of America and working at the famed Le Cirque restaurant. Hauser developed most of the recipes and tried to design the menu to be healthier by replacing the use of traditional animal fats with vegetable oils and tried to use more fresh vegetables and herbs when he could. During the first year, lines stretched out the door during most evenings at dinnertime, but it usually took roughly seven minutes for customers in a 30-person line to get served. Zuma was a made-up name but was also the name of a friend's cat. The Denver, Colorado, location was an immediate success, with first-year revenues exceeding $1,500,000. The cost of opening the store had been only $180,000. In 1997, the name of the company was changed from Zuma to Z-Teca Mexican Grill because of a lawsuit from another restaurant using the Zuma name in Boston and confusion caused by the similar-sounding ZuZu Handmade Mexican Grill chain that was operating in the Denver area at that time. During the same year, Z-teca began to offer franchise opportunities to entrepreneurs to expand the chain outside of its core territory of Colorado. In exchange for a large stake, Western Capital and other investors gave the company a large infusion of capital in early 1998 to allow the company to open 25 new locations and nearly triple its size. Later that year, Gary Beisler was hired in 1998 to replace Miller as president and chief operating officer while Miller remained as chief executive officer. By mid-1998, Z-Teca had 21 locations in