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Two Families Own 61 of Houston's 64 Popeyes

Mert Iseri

Houston has 64 Popeyes inside the city limits. We pulled the sales tax permit behind every one.

39 belong to Z & H Foods, Inc. The state's franchise tax records name its president: Amin Dhanani of Sugar Land, Texas, the largest Popeyes franchisee in the country. The Lakhany family's CSM Group holds 22 more through six LLCs. Two families, 61 of Houston's 64 stores.

The map

Open full screen
Owner groupLocationsPrincipals (per state records)
Dhanani family (Z & H Foods, Inc.)39Amin Dhanani
Lakhany family (CSM Group, 6 LLCs)22Mohammed A. Lakhany; Imad A. Lakhany; Salma Lakhany; Muhammad Junaid Memon
Momin family (American Food, LLC)1Mustaqbhai K. Momin; Mywsh Momin
Keswani family (Peachpop Inc.)1Amit Keswani
Cediel family (CCM IAH-D Popeye's, LLC)1Mario F. Cediel

One family, six companies

Continental Southwest Management, CSM Foods, LB Southwest Management, LB North, LB West, and LB 12 read as six unrelated operators. State records collapse them to one office: every LLC files from the same suite on Dairy Ashford Road and uses the same registered agent. Press profiles the family behind them, the Lakhanys of Houston, Popeyes franchisees since 1987 with 141 stores nationally. We call these hidden chains.

LB 12, the newest, has no officer filing yet. Its place in the group is an inference from the shared address, the shared agent, and the LB naming pattern.

Permits back to 2002

The permit file goes back to 2002 and keeps predecessor permits on the books when a store changes hands, so the handoffs show up in the data:

  • The oldest permit is 15125 Wallisville Rd: PTEX Corp., 2002. Peachpop Inc., the same family at the same mailing address, took it over in 2013.
  • Z & H entered Houston at scale on one day: 21 of its permits were issued September 27, 2012, matching press accounts of Amin Dhanani's 49-store acquisition that year.
  • In 2016, LB Southwest Management took over 8120 N Sam Houston Pkwy W from the Keswani group's Paradine, LLC.
  • In February 2024, LB 12, formed eight weeks earlier, took over six stores from the Momin family's American Food, LLC. American Food kept one, on Northwest Freeway.
  • The newest permit is the airport unit: CCM IAH-D Popeye's, LLC took a fresh permit for the IAH Terminal D store in January 2026.

The Dhanani name also links this map to our Chicago dataset. Press describes Amin as the youngest son of the same Sugar Land family whose Tri City Foods owns 38 of Chicago's 46 Burger Kings.

Sources

  • Ora Google Places sweep: 60 listings from one broad search (the API's cap), plus 19 targeted per-address lookups to close the gap.
  • Texas Comptroller Active Sales Tax Permit Holders dataset: 82 active permit rows tied to Houston Popeyes operations across 14 legal entities. The inside-city-limits flag defines city-proper; deduping predecessor permits at transferred stores yields 64 locations.
  • Texas Comptroller franchise tax records: named officers and titles for all 14 entities.

Limitations: city limits only, per the Comptroller's inside-city-limits flag. Two of the 64 hold active permits but lack Google confirmation of being open. Officer records list only the officers filed with the state.

Download the dataset: 64 rows with address, owner entity, named principals, and permit dates.

Ora tracks the license filings, transfers, and closures that change this table. Contact us to learn more.