Overview
- Feel Better Holding, led by Peter Gries and Lars Krämer, is renovating the former Sausalitos site at Hohenzollernring 50, has installed the kitchen, is finishing the interior fit-out and has begun staff training.
- Taco Bell and the local operator are publicly targeting an opening at the end of September 2026 for the first outlet open to the general public in Germany.
- The rollout uses a new strategy of granting rights to six regional area-developers rather than a single national franchisee, with Feel Better Holding covering Cologne and the Rhineland.
- The Cologne menu will largely follow the U.S. Taco Bell line-up with German adjustments and vegetarian options, and the brand has been teasing the launch on social media under the slogan 'Von California nach Köllefornia.'
- This move follows a failed civilian-market attempt in May 2025 and the brand’s prior presence only on U.S. military bases, and it could shape how Taco Bell expands across Germany if the regional-developer model proves operationally steady.