Qdoba Mexican Eats has opened a new restaurant at 1539 Montgomery Highway in Hoover, marking more than a year of planning, construction, hiring and staff training before the doors finally opened. General Manager Hari Vajaha says the launch is the culmination of that long buildout and a chance to serve the community he calls home.
The opening comes as Qdoba's Birmingham-area footprint keeps growing. As Bham Now reported, the Hoover restaurant is Qdoba's second location in the Birmingham area and its fourth in Alabama overall, and Vajaha has lived in Hoover for the past 10 years. According to Hoover Sun, the location sits along one of Hoover's busiest commercial corridors on U.S. 31, joining a growing stretch of dining options as the city continues to develop.
A Menu Built Around Customization
Qdoba's draw has long been its build-your-own approach, and the Hoover location is no different, offering customizable burritos, bowls, tacos and quesadillas. Vajaha said guests can mix and match a wide variety of flavors and ingredients to build a meal that's entirely their own. The restaurant's own location page touts that diners can top any order with guacamole and queso for free, per QDOBA, and the site notes that whether customers dine in, take out or opt for delivery, the same menu is available.
The Hoover shop is a 2,100-square-foot restaurant tucked into the Hoover Crossings shopping center, the Hoover Sun's reporting notes. That puts it in the middle of a commercial corridor the paper describes as one of the city's busiest.
Hiring Focused On Hoover And Greater Birmingham
Filling out the new restaurant meant hiring new team members across leadership, front-of-house and back-of-house roles, and most of those positions went to residents of Hoover and surrounding Greater Birmingham communities. Vajaha said that local hiring was a deliberate priority for the location, not an afterthought.
That community focus extends beyond the payroll. Vajaha said community involvement is very important to Qdoba, and that long-term success means building a sustainable business while serving as an engaged community partner.
Fundraising Program And Catering Push
The Hoover location plans to make Qdoba's Force for Good program fully available to area groups. The program lets schools, nonprofits and local organizations host fundraiser nights and receive a portion of qualifying sales. Local organizations interested in coordinating one of those events can contact the restaurant team directly or reach out through local social media channels.
On the catering side, the restaurant is targeting Hoover-area schools, churches, youth sports leagues, businesses and nonprofits as potential clients. The Hoover location is open Monday through Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and can be reached at 205-369-9999.
Part Of A Bigger Expansion Plan
The Hoover opening follows a broader expansion strategy the chain laid out in 2025. Qdoba returned to Birmingham that year after a hiatus of several years, opening a location on 20th Street South, according to AL.com. At the time, the chain was eyeing four more locations across the Birmingham metro area beyond Hoover, with AL.com reporting the Hoover restaurant was projected to open in fall 2025, possibly October — a timeline that ultimately slipped before the store's actual debut.
Those additional sites were described as planned for along U.S. 280, as well as in Trussville and Alabaster. The Shelby County Reporter's coverage from the same period quoted QSR LLC CEO Chandar Arora laying out the vision: “we are going to put one in downtown, one in Hoover, one in Trussville, one on 280, one in Alabaster.” That report also noted that neither the Alabaster nor the Highway 280 locations had confirmed sites at the time, according to the Shelby County Reporter.
