Wonder maps more than 100 Texas locations by the end of 2027

Wonder, the multi-restaurant food hall chain founded by former Walmart e-commerce chief Marc Lore, is planning its first expansion outside the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic — and it is not easing in. The company intends to open more than 100 locations across Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio by the end of 2027, entering through Dallas-Fort Worth with first openings slated for early 2027, according to CRE Daily reporting carried by Yahoo Finance and the company's February announcement on PR Newswire. Site work is already surfacing beyond the four major metros: filings reported by What Now Dallas show a 3,262-square-foot Wonder planned at 800 S. 7th Street in Waco's Tinsley Square, a renovation of an existing restaurant space with construction targeted to run from September to November of this year.

Wonder packs more than 20 chef-driven concepts — Bobby Flay Steak, Marcus Samuelsson's Streetbird, Di Fara Pizza and Tejas Barbecue among them — into a single small-format storefront that doubles as a delivery production hub. Customers can mix items across concepts in one order, and the model leans delivery- and pickup-first rather than dine-in. The company operates roughly 147 locations today across nine states and Washington, D.C., per Yahoo Finance, up from the 100-storefront milestone it celebrated in February, and has said it expects to surpass 200 storefronts by the end of 2026.

DFW is the beachhead, with Houston, Austin and San Antonio to follow. "Texas' dynamic food culture, population growth, and suburban footprint align closely with our delivery-first model," Tony Hoggett, CEO of Wonder North America, said in the company's announcement. Notably, Wonder is not chasing premium urban storefronts. The company targets suburban parcels with strong car access and generous delivery radiuses. "We do much better in suburban and less densely populated areas," Lore told CRE Daily, citing lighter competition and longer operating hours in those trade areas. The Waco filing suggests the map will extend into mid-size Texas markets between the big four metros as well.

Wonder was valued at $9 billion in its most recent raise and has collected roughly $3 billion in capital, spending more than $2.5 billion scaling the business over seven years, per Yahoo Finance. Lore personally put $100 million into a $600 million round in May 2025, Chain Store Age reported. The Texas program — 100-plus units in roughly a year of opening activity — would nearly double the chain's current footprint in a single state, and the company says the buildout will create thousands of jobs statewide over the next two years. Wonder has not confirmed profitability, and it has not disclosed unit-level economics for the Texas stores.

For retail landlords, Wonder profiles as a well-capitalized tenant absorbing small-format, second-generation restaurant space — the Waco deal at about 3,300 square feet is a template — which puts it in direct competition for the same endcaps and conversions that fast-casual and QSR brands are fighting over in Texas. Its delivery-radius site math also means it can pay for visibility-light real estate that traditional restaurants pass on, potentially deepening the buyer pool for B-grade suburban pads. The pace itself is the biggest open question: 100-plus openings by the end of 2027 implies a site-selection and construction machine running faster than most national chains ever achieve, and slippage would not be surprising. And with profitability unconfirmed after $2.5 billion of spend, landlords will want to weigh lease term and tenant-improvement exposure against the strength of the balance sheet behind it.