The Failed Tex-Mex Chain That Was Almost As Popular As Chi-Chi's

These days, you've got your fair share of quick-service Mexican and Tex-Mex restaurants to choose from. There's Chi-Chi's, On The Border, and Chuy's, or even Chipotle, Moe's, and Tijuana Flats to pick up an order of zesty nachos, jalapeno-stuffed tacos, or fajita burritos. For a time, there was another big contender in the game, Don Pablo's Grille Mexicana, and although you won't find any operational restaurants today, the chain's legacy lives on.

At the height of its reign, Don Pablo's was operating about 120 restaurants from Ohio to New Jersey and several other states across the country. The business was acquired by Apple South in 1993, the same company that operated several Applebee's locations, but was transferred to Avado Brands just a few years later when Apple South separated from Applebee's and rebranded.

Both were owned by franchisee Tom DuPree, who aimed to expand Don Pablo's into a mega-chain. By the 2000s, Avado Brands disbanded, and in the next decade, the Don Pablo's chains fell into the hands of Rita Restaurant Corp. and Food Management Partners. Around this time, things went downhill for the chain, with restaurants closing until Don Pablo's officially filed for bankruptcy in 2017. If only it had followed in Friendly's footsteps and beaten bankruptcy, we could still be enjoying those homemade tortillas today.

Don Pablo's first restaurant opened in Lubbock, Texas, in 1985 with a menu that included items like scratch-made tortillas, tacos, and other popular Tex-Mex foods. The chain was renowned for its open-kitchen concept and colorful, Mexican-style decorations, much like the Taco Bell Cantina on the Las Vegas strip, which we ranked as one of the four coolest Taco Bell locations in the U.S. It was on track to keep growing while under the Avada Brands' umbrella, becoming stiff competition against similar concept restaurants and expanding rapidly into a widely recognizable name, but changes in ownership and the advanced market of quick-service Mexican restaurants during the 2000s made it hard for this chain to stay profitable.

The final Don Pablo's restaurant shut its doors in 2019, but in the year or so before that, other locations across the country closed down with little to no warning to both employees and customers. The name "Don Pablo's" was purchased in 2021 by a restaurant owner in New Bern, North Carolina, who loved the original chain so much that he wanted to take a piece of it into the new decade. The New Bern restaurant, which goes by Don Pablos Tacos & Tequila, isn't affiliated with the old Don Pablo's Grille Mexicana chain, but instead pays homage to the concept. The original Don Pablo's failures mean that, now, it's just another name on our list of 15 failed restaurant chains we actually miss.