Leadership Shift
Texas Born (TXB) has named Nate Brazier as President, adding an experienced convenience-foodservice operator to the top of its leadership structure as the chain pushes forward with five new store builds. Owner and CEO Kevin Smartt retains his role and will redirect his focus to growth strategy, capital allocation, and acquisitions, while Brazier takes the wheel on day-to-day operations across more than 50 locations spanning 200,000 square feet of property in Texas and Oklahoma.
Brazier arrives from Stinker Stores, where he served as President and CEO and guided the chain to CStore Decisions' 2025 Chain of the Year recognition. His background is squarely in the intersection of convenience retail and fresh foodservice — a combination increasingly central to how TXB positions itself against both traditional c-stores and fast-casual competitors.
Fresh-Food Focus
TXB markets itself as a family of "restaurant-style" convenience stores built around made-to-order food and private-label products — a format that demands a heavier back-of-house infrastructure than legacy fuel-and-snack stores. Each new location represents a meaningful equipment investment: commercial cooking lines, refrigerated prep and storage systems, ventilation, and ware-handling typically calibrated to quick-service throughput. With five additional sites in the pipeline, equipment dealers and foodservice consultants specifying high-volume prep-and-storage buildouts will want to track TXB's expansion cadence closely.
Brazier signaled that differentiation through fresh food will be a cornerstone of his tenure. "My goal is to build on that foundation by investing in our people, continuing to differentiate TXB through fresh food and strengthening the culture that makes this company special," he said. Smartt echoed the sentiment, pointing to TXB's commitment to a "best-in-class convenience retail experience" as the strategic north star.
What the Expansion Means
The leadership restructuring follows a pattern common among growth-stage c-store chains: the founder-CEO elevates a seasoned operator to handle execution while personally concentrating on site selection, financing, and M&A. For the foodservice equipment supply chain, that often means more systematic procurement processes and standardized kitchen packages rolled across new builds — a dynamic that benefits dealers offering turnkey commercial kitchen programs. Operators and equipment dealers tracking c-store kitchen buildout activity should note that TXB's restaurant-style model implies full cooking suites, not grab-and-go-only footprints.
TXB's 50-plus-location footprint, concentrated in Texas and Oklahoma, positions the chain as a regional operator with enough scale to standardize equipment specifications across a fleet — and enough ambition, with five more stores planned, to make those specs worth pursuing.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
