Zambrero Brand Guidelines: A Braddon Burrito Bar, 2005, and a Brighter Green Look

A medical student and an old takeaway.

Zambrero began in Canberra. Its founder, Sam Prince, was a 21-year-old medical student when he opened the first restaurant in an old takeaway on Lonsdale Street, Braddon, in 2005, The Canberra Times reported in January 2026; the paper said New Year’s Eve 2025 marked the 20th anniversary of that opening. The company’s own story gives the same year and says the idea came while Prince was working part-time in a Mexican restaurant. The Canberra Times placed that job in Melbourne, where he studied, and quoted him recalling nights spent “rolling burritos.”

The Lonsdale Street building has since been demolished and the restaurant moved elsewhere, Prince told the paper. The company says the chain grew from 20 restaurants in 2012 to more than 100 in 2015. Inside Retail reported in December 2015 that the 100th had opened in Midland, in Perth, with Rockingham in Western Australia next in line, and that the brand had launched in New Zealand in late 2014. Karim Messih was chief executive at the time; the company says he had been general manager from 2013 and later became a franchise partner himself.

Ownership stayed close to the founder. The company says that in 2015 Prince bought back a small amount of equity he had given to former employees, returning the business to his full ownership. In February 2023 the chain took an investment from Metric Capital Partners, The Caterer reported in July 2025. English Wikipedia describes Zambrero as an Australian multinational restaurant franchise, and its restaurants are run largely by franchise partners, a term the company and the trade press both use.

Zambrero sits inside a wider group. The company says its Australian and UK chief executives appointed in 2020, Matthew Kenny and Emily Teh, both came from other roles within the Prince Group, and The Canberra Times noted in 2026 that Prince’s business interests now extend beyond Zambrero to a hospitality group and other ventures based in Canberra.

Burritos, bowls and a counter on the wall.

The menu centres on burritos and bowls that customers build to order. The Caterer described Zambrero’s signature dishes as “customisable burritos and bowls” in 2025, and said the formats ranged from standard restaurants to drive-throughs.

The chain’s look changed in 2023. Inside Retail reported in September 2023 that a new flagship in Sydney’s Kings Cross, the chain’s 14th restaurant in the Sydney metro area, showed a refreshed visual identity developed with the creative agency Today the Brave. The report described a switch from a calm, “zen” mood to a more upbeat one, while keeping the brand’s green colourway, and said the new design system used livelier language, graphic devices and photography across posters, decals, signage, menus and marketing. It added that the textures, materials and furniture of the new look were meant for the wider network as the brand was updated.

A counter is part of the shop design as well. The company says it donates a meal for each burrito or bowl bought under its Plate 4 Plate programme; The Canberra Times reported in January 2026 that a real-time counter in the restaurants and online keeps the running total. The paper quoted Prince recalling a visit to the chain’s Belconnen restaurant, which he said he had built with his own hands.

No public specification of Zambrero’s colours or lettering has been published beyond that green colourway, so the palette in this guide is our own interpretation, built around a deep leaf green with a brighter lime and a warm coral for contrast.

How burrito chains present themselves.

Mexican and burrito fast-casual chains tend to present themselves through the counter as much as the sign. The format is usually the same in outline: a menu of burritos, bowls, tacos and nachos, a kitchen line where each order is made up in front of the customer, and a choice of eating in, taking away or ordering ahead. The Caterer described one Australian chain’s signature dishes in 2025 simply as “customisable burritos and bowls,” and companies in the category describe their own kitchens in terms of speed and made-to-order assembly.

Names in the category often borrow Spanish words or invented surnames, and the shortened form can matter as much as the full one. Guzman y Gomez, named after two of a founder’s childhood friends according to English Wikipedia, is generally shortened to three initials. The same company calls its head offices Hola Central, and Zambrero’s UK chief executive called the chain’s franchise partners the “Zam Fam” in 2025, so the naming habit often reaches past the menu into the business itself.

Visual identities in the category often lean on bright colour and hand-made graphic details, as the companies describe them. Guzman y Gomez says its logo letters are drawn to look like sticky tape, a nod to street art in Mexico, and Inside Retail reported in 2023 that Zambrero had moved to a brighter, more upbeat look for posters, decals, signage and menus while keeping its green colourway. In both cases a small set of colours and one recognisable graphic idea are meant to carry from the shop front to the menu board.

Behind the counters sit very different businesses: founder-owned franchisors, private-equity-backed groups, chains that have been through administration or Chapter 11, and companies listed on a stock exchange. Their corporate pages set out founding stories, founders and timelines of openings, while dated press and official records fill in owners, listings and closures.

From Canberra to five countries.

Zambrero left Australia early. English Wikipedia says it opened in New Zealand in November 2014, in Dublin in March 2016, and its first two US restaurants on 20 March 2018; the company says its US expansion has been led since 2020 by Bianca Azzopardi, who was previously its Australian chief executive. The Caterer reported that Zambrero entered the UK in 2021 with a restaurant in London’s Kentish Town, and that by July 2025 it had 13 UK restaurants around London, Manchester, Birmingham, Reading and Essex, with a UK business led by its own chief executive, Emily Teh. The same report said the UK business had begun recruiting franchise partners and multi-site owners, and quoted Teh calling the partners who join the “Zam Fam.”

Counts depend on the date. Inside Retail reported in September 2023 that the chain had more than 221 restaurants in Australia, and in October 2025 that it had 339 worldwide, including 285 in Australia, figures English Wikipedia repeats; The Canberra Times gave more than 300 worldwide in January 2026. The October 2025 report said Daryl McCormack, who had joined 13 years earlier as a development agent for Victoria and a multi-unit franchisee, had become chief executive, replacing Matthew Kenny after five years in the role.

Canberra remains part of the story the company tells. Prince told The Canberra Times that there was now a Zambrero “in every corner of Canberra,” two decades after the first one opened in Braddon. For a design guide, Zambrero shows how a chain can keep one colour family through a brighter, louder redesign, and how a counter on the wall can become part of a shop’s graphics. Compare Guzman y Gomez, the Sydney burrito chain that opened its first restaurant a year later, and Mad Mex, another Australian Mexican chain. For this guide we use leaf green, lime and coral with a rounded sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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