Draft:Out West Restaurant Group

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Out West Restaurant Group Inc. is a separately-owned and operated corporate franchisee of the national Australian-themed steakhouse chain Outback Steakhouse, based in San Diego, California. The company currently operates Outback locations in California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.

History
Out West Restaurant Group was founded by Thomas J. Shannon Jr. in 1992, under the name T-Bird Restaurant Group. The company would separately operate a select number of Outback Steakhouse locations, exclusively in California. T-Bird operated out of their original headquarters in La Jolla, California.

Under Shannon’s leadership, T-Bird grew to operate over 60 Outback locations in California, and even resulted in the Association Educational Foundation named Tom the “Restaurateur of the Year, 2002.”



In Late 2015, T-Bird was acquired by H.I.G. Capital, a private equity firm based in Miami, Florida. This buyout resulted in the company’s stock ultimately going private, leaving its exact financial status largely unknown.

In 2018, T-Bird merged with a struggling restaurant company Cerca Trova Restaurant Concepts, and created a new company, which would be called Out West Restaurant Group Inc. This newly formed company moved from their La Jolla base to their new headquarters in San Diego, California, as well as acquiring Outback locations in other states, including Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, while also growing their already large footprint in California. Out West now operates over 100 locations in their 5 respective states, all in the West Coast.