Quick service restaurants look at Phoenix and what do they see? Room for growth. “Phoenix ranks among the nation’s hottest markets for quick serve restaurants,” said JLL SVP Tyson Switzenberg.

Tyson recently repped Café Rio, a Southwestern-style QSR based in Salt Lake City, in five new leases in the metro Phoenix market, with the new restaurants opening between October this year and the summer of next year (two have opened, three more will).

Café Rio has been rapidly expanding in Phoenix due to the success of its existing stores in the marketplace, Tyson said, all of which are end-cap spaces within strong regional or neighborhood trade areas. "These properties have helped Café Rio realize its 2016 Phoenix-area expansion plans, which it expects to continue in 2017 and beyond.”

Metro Phoenix is home to 93 quick serve restaurants per 100,000 residents, according to JLL data. That puts the region fourth on the company’s list of Top 10 Best Large Markets for Quick-Service Restaurant Expansion, with a QSR density that ranks behind only Nashville, Houston and Washington, DC.

All of the new Café Rio locations in Phoenix will be between 2k SF and 2,800 SF, in various submarkets. The company operates more than 100 US locations in 10 states, including 13 restaurants in metro Phoenix.