professionals who are equally passionate about Fogo, including Tony Laday, our CFO, Rick Lenderman, our COO, Selma Oliveira, our Chief Culture Officer, Janet Geiselman, our CMO, Andrew Feldmann, President of International Franchise Development, Blake Bernet, our General Counsel and Joe Abbruzese, our Chief Development Officer.
Our Growth Strategies
We plan to expand our restaurant footprint and platforms to drive revenue growth, improve operating contribution, restaurant contribution and Adjusted EBITDA margins, enhance our competitive positioning and continue to delight our diverse customer base by executing on the following strategies:
Grow Our Restaurant Base in the U.S. and Abroad
We are in the early stages of our growth with our 75 current restaurants, 59 of which are company-owned restaurants in the U.S. (across 22 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico). Our concept has proven portability, with consistently strong AUVs across a diverse range of geographic regions and real estate settings. In 2023, we have opened four company-owned restaurants, and expect to open 7-9 additional company-owned restaurants and 3-5 international franchise restaurants during the remainder of 2023, supported by a strong pipeline of new restaurant development. Based on internal analysis and an in-depth study prepared by eSite, we believe there exists long-term potential for approximately 600 total sites in the United States, which represent a substantial 25-year growth opportunity. We also believe, based on an internal review of other American restaurant group store counts throughout the world as well as insights from our international franchise advisors, that there is potential for 250 franchise restaurants internationally over the next 25 years. Through the broad appeal of our differentiated concept, improved unit economic model and enhanced real estate strategy lowering overall investment costs, we believe we can meet the same return hurdles in smaller trade demand areas than in the past and do so more predictably, which has expanded our overall whitespace of new restaurants which meet our high return hurdle.
Our current restaurant investment model targets an average cash investment of $3.8-$4.0 million per restaurant, net of tenant allowances and pre-opening costs, assuming an average restaurant size of approximately 8,500 square feet, an AUV of $6.6 million or $776 of sales per square foot and targeted cash-on-cash returns of approximately 40%, which we calculate by dividing our restaurant contribution in the third year of operation by our initial investment costs (net of tenant allowances and excluding pre-opening expenses).
Our 19 restaurants opened since 2019, which are located across diverse geographic regions and in various trade areas in the U.S., exceeded their year 3 AUV target in the trailing twelve months ended April 2, 2023 by an average of 46%. These exceptional results provide us with strong conviction in the potential of our current new restaurant pipeline, which exemplifies many of the same characteristics as these 19 restaurants, and our longer term growth ambitions.
Our three new U.S. restaurants opened during Fiscal 2019 (located in Bethesda, MD, Irvine, CA and Long Island, NY) that were open during the entirety of Fiscal 2021, Fiscal 2022 and the 13 weeks ended April 2, 2023 had average weekly sales of $213,000 for the 52 weeks ended April 2, 2023, exceeding the average weekly sales implied by our target year 3 U.S. AUV of $6.6 million by 67%. Our five new U.S. restaurants opened during Fiscal 2021 (located in White Plains, NY, Albuquerque, NM, Burlington, MA, Oak Brook, IL, and Huntington Station, NY) that were open during the entirety of Fiscal 2022 and the 13 weeks ended April 2, 2023 had average weekly sales of $152,000 for the 52 weeks ended April 2, 2023, exceeding the average weekly sales implied by our target year 3 U.S. AUV of $6.6 million by 20%. Our eight new U.S. restaurants opened during Fiscal 2022 (located in Coral Gables, FL, El Segundo, CA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Pasadena, CA, Friendswood, TX, Queens, NY, Reston, VA, and Austin, TX) had average weekly sales of $168,000 for the weeks in which they were open during the 52 weeks ended April 2, 2023, exceeding the average weekly sales implied by our target year 3 U.S. AUV of $6.6 million by 32%. Our three new U.S. restaurants
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