A locally born chicken tenders restaurant chain — recently bought out by a bigger restaurant group — now has two new southwest Orlando eateries in the works and is on the hunt for more local sites.

Huey Magoo’s, which has four Central Florida eateries, is working on a new site in the $92 million Gardens on Millenia shopping center near The Mall at Millenia and another location in the Plaza Venezia shopping center on Sand Lake Road’s restaurant row corridor. The restaurants are expected to open in the first half of next year.

Along with that, the chain is targeting about 20 more Central Florida locations in the next five years through franchising, eyeing potential sites in submarkets including Lake Nona, Lake Mary, Winter Park and Apopka. That would bring about 400 new jobs to the area, as well as create temporary construction jobs and offer more dining options to existing residents and workers.

The chain is looking for sites where it can build out 2,000-square-foot restaurants, according to Andy Howard, a former top executive at Wingstop Inc. (Nasdaq: WING), who now is CEO of Pittsburgh-based Huey Magoo’s Restaurants LLC. The new Huey Magoo’s entity — which state records showed was incorporated in June — bought the concept for an undisclosed price from founders Matt “Huey” Armstrong and Thad “Magoo” Hudgens, according to a news release.

Armstrong and Hudgens will retain a portion of the company ownership and remain as franchisees of two of the four Central Florida restaurants: Winter Springs and Altamonte Springs.

As mentioned at Biz Journals