Baja Fresh Mexican Grill is continuing its 2009 expansion with the opening of the restaurant’s newest Baja Fresh Express location inside Nashville’s Vanderbilt Medical Center Courtyard Café. The new restaurant offers fresh Mexican food in an express format for busy students, faculty, patients, and facility guests alike.

The 600 square-foot restaurant is owned and operated by 20-year industry veteran Maria Nayyar. It is open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days per week.

“Vanderbilt Medical Center is a teaching hospital and employs 22,000 people,” Nayyar says when asked why she opened a Baja Fresh in its particular location. “The Courtyard Café consistently does over 3,000 transactions per day. Baja Fresh is known for its outstanding quality, freshness, cleanliness, and customer service. We will be the first premier brand offering made-to-order burritos, tacos, and other Mexican favorites in the Courtyard Café.”

“The Baja Fresh Express model opened in the Vanderbilt Medical Center is a great example of the company’s philosophy to seek out nontraditional opportunities and continued growth plans throughout the United States,” says Baja Fresh president Charles Rink. “We look forward to the success of this restaurant.”

“Our organization is very pleased with the franchise opportunity at Vanderbilt Medical Center,” Nayyar says. “The level of support from the Baja Fresh Corporation has been extremely professional and made the venture very successful.”