Company type | Subsidiary |
---|---|
Industry | Fast casual restaurant |
Founded | November 15, 1969 Santa Barbara, California, U.S. |
Headquarters | Irvine, California, U.S. |
Number of locations | 372 [1] |
Area served | United States, Cambodia, China, United Arab Emirates |
Key people | Russell W. Bendel, CEO Ira Fils, CFO |
Products |
|
Revenue | US$402 million (2021) |
Number of employees | 6,093 (2021) |
Parent | Yum! Brands |
Website | habitburger |
The Habit Burger Grill is a California-based fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in chargrilled hamburgers. The company also sells other typical fast-casual fare. [3] It was founded in 1969 at Santa Barbara, California, and its headquarters are in Irvine, California. [2]
In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Wingstreet, acquired The Habit Burger Grill. [4] [5] [6]
The Habit Burger Grill was founded on November 15, 1969, in Santa Barbara County, California, as a family-owned business. [3] [7]
In 1980, Brent and Bruce Reichard purchased the original location in Goleta, and a second location opened in Ventura in 1995. They gradually grew the chain to twenty-four units in Southern California. [8]
In 2007, KarpReilly, a private equity firm, acquired a majority ownership in the company and began to rapidly expand the chain, including franchising. [9] Not included in the sale were the eight locations in Santa Barbara County, California, which remained under the ownership of the Reichard brothers. [8]
In 2014, Habit had 109 locations either open for business or under construction, including an expansion into Seattle. [10] At that time, the company was one of the fastest-growing fast food chains in the United States, with a 40% sales increase from 2012 to 2013. [11] In November 2014, the company raised $83.7 million in an initial public offering. [12] [13] [14] The share price immediately doubled. [15] By 2016, growth had slowed significantly, in line with the burger business. [16]
In 2017, the company announced plans to expand into the United Kingdom with 30 restaurants. [17]
In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Wingstreet, acquired Habit. [18] The brothers decided to retire and sell their remaining restaurants to Yum! Brands in 2021. [19] The operations shifted in March 2022. [20]
As of May 2024, Habit Burger Grill had 372 locations, [1] mostly in California, as follows: [1]
Location | # of locations |
---|---|
Arizona | 20 |
California | 250 |
Florida | 10 |
Idaho | 3 |
Maryland | 6 |
Massachusetts | 1 [21] |
Nevada | 11 |
New Jersey | 16 |
North Carolina | 7 |
Pennsylvania | 1 |
South Carolina | 6 |
Utah | 15 |
Virginia | 3 |
Washington | 13 |
Cambodia | 5 [22] [23] |
China | 5 |
The company also has a fleet of nine food trucks. [24]
In mid-2014, The Habit's "Charburger" was named the best burger in America by Consumer Reports, a nonprofit organization dedicated to independent product testing, scoring an 8.1 out of 10 among 53,745 participants. [25] [26] [27]
Taco Bell Corp. is an American multinational chain of fast food restaurants founded in 1962 by Glen Bell (1923–2010) in Downey, California. Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. The restaurants serve a variety of Mexican-inspired foods, including tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, novelty, and speciality items, and a variety of "value menu" items. As of 2023, Taco Bell serves over two billion customers each year, at 8,212 restaurants, more than 94 percent of which are owned and operated by independent franchisees and licensees.
Yum! Brands, Inc., formerly Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc., is an American multinational fast food corporation listed on the Fortune 1000. Yum! operates the brands KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill, except in China, where the brands are operated by a separate company, Yum China. Yum! previously also owned Long John Silver's and A&W Restaurants. The company was created as a spin-off of PepsiCo in 1997.
Jollibee is a Filipino chain of fast food restaurants owned by Jollibee Foods Corporation (JFC). As of September 2023, there were over 1,500 Jollibee outlets worldwide, with restaurants in Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, North America, and Europe.
A&W Restaurants, Inc. is an American fast food restaurant chain distinguished by its burgers, draft root beer and root beer floats. The oldest extant restaurant chain in the United States, A&W's origins date back to 1919 when Roy W. Allen set up a roadside drink stand to offer a new thick and creamy drink, root beer, at a parade honoring returning World War I veterans in Lodi, California. Allen's employee Frank Wright partnered with him in 1922 and they founded their first restaurant in Sacramento, California, in 1923. The company name was taken from the initials of their last names – Allen and Wright. The company became famous in the United States for its "frosty mugs" – the mugs were kept in a freezer and filled with A&W Root Beer just before being served to customers.
Qdoba is a chain of fast casual restaurants in the United States and Canada serving Mexican-style cuisine. After 15 years as a wholly owned subsidiary of Jack in the Box, the company was sold to a consortium of funds led by Apollo Global Management in March 2018. In October 2022, Qdoba was acquired by Butterfly Equity. At the time of the acquisition, Qdoba had nearly 750 locations across North America. It is the No.2 player and No.1 franchisor of Mexican fast-casual dining in North America.
The predecessor to what is now the international fast food restaurant chain Burger King was founded on July 23, 1954, in Jacksonville, Florida, as Instant Burger King. Inspired by the McDonald brothers' original store location in San Bernardino, California, the founders and owners, Keith J. Cramer and his stepfather Matthew Burns, began searching for a concept. After purchasing the rights to two pieces of equipment called "Insta" machines, the two opened their first stores around a cooking device known as the Insta-Broiler. The Insta-Broiler oven proved so successful at cooking burgers, they required all of their franchises to carry the device. After the original company began to falter in 1959, it was purchased by its Miami, Florida, franchisees James McLamore and David R. Edgerton. The two initiated a corporate restructuring of the chain; the first step being to rename the company, Burger King. The duo ran the company as an independent entity for eight years, eventually expanding to over 250 locations in the United States, when they sold it to the Pillsbury Company in 1967.
Competitive Foods Australia (CFA) is the largest franchiser of restaurants in Australia. It is owned and operated by Jack Cowin. Its units are Hungry Jack's and, previously, some KFC stores.
AmRest is a European multinational casual dining, fast-food restaurant and coffee shop operator headquartered in the Spanish capital, Madrid . The company runs more than 2300 locations, mostly franchises of KFC, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, and also Burger King until 2022, but also operates its own brands of restaurants. Apart from Spain, AmRest operates in Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and others.
Wimpy is a fast-food chain that was founded in the United States. It found its success internationally, mainly in the United Kingdom and South Africa. It has changed between being a table-service establishment and counter-service establishment throughout its history.
Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC is an American fast-food restaurant chain owned by CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc., with franchisees in North and South America, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and Africa.
Pie Five Pizza is an American fast casual restaurant chain specializing in personal pizza. The brand is owned by Rave Restaurant Group, which also owns Pizza Inn. As of July 2021, Pie Five operates 33 restaurants with locations in the following states: Arkansas, California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas.
KFC was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of restaurant franchising, and the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opened in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1952. KFC popularized chicken in the fast-food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. Branding himself "Colonel Sanders", the founder became a prominent figure of American cultural history, and his image remains widely used in KFC advertising. The company's rapid expansion made it too large for Sanders to manage, so in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown Jr. and Jack C. Massey.
Burger Lounge is an American fast casual restaurant chain that specializes in hamburgers made from American grass-fed beef, salads, shakes, French fries and onion rings. Burger Lounge is headquartered in San Diego, California. In 2007, J. Dean Loring and Michael Gilligan founded the company in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. J. Dean Loring is the President and CEO of Burger Lounge.
Veggie Grill is a fast-casual vegan restaurant chain that operates in California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York. The first restaurant opened in Irvine, California and is operating 29 restaurants as of February 2018. The chain focuses on offering only plant-based food, with no meat, dairy, eggs, LDL cholesterol, animal fat or trans fat.
Collins Foods Limited is a publicly-listed Australian company focused in restaurant operations. It operates KFC and Taco Bell restaurants in Australia, Germany, and the Netherlands. It previously owned the US-based Sizzler restaurants, operated Sizzler in Australia, and franchised Sizzler in Asia. It also operated Snag Stand in Australia, and was the majority owner of Pat & Oscar's in the US.