The Habit Restaurants, LLC doing business as Habit Burger & Grill,[4] is a fast casual restaurant chain based in Irvine, California specializing in chargrilled hamburgers. The company sells typical fast-casual fare.
In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, acquired The Habit Burger Grill.[5][6][7]
The Habit Burger Grill was founded on November 15, 1969, in Santa Barbara, California, as a family-owned business.[8][9] It originally operated under the name The Hamburger Habit.[10] In 1980, Brent and Bruce Reichard purchased the original location in Goleta. A second location opened in Ventura in 1997.[11] They gradually expanded the chain to 17 units in Southern California.[11]
In 2007, KarpReilly, a private equity firm, acquired a majority ownership in the company and began to rapidly expand the chain, including franchising.[12] Not included in the sale were eight locations in Santa Barbara County, California, which remained under the ownership of the Reichard brothers.[10]
In 2014, Habit had 109 locations either operating or under construction, including an expansion location in Seattle.[13] At the 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.[14] In November 2014, the company raised $83.7 million in an initial public offering.[15][16][17] The share price immediately doubled.[18] By 2016, growth had slowed significantly, in line with the burger business.[19] In 2017, the company announced plans to expand into the United Kingdom with 30 restaurants.[20]
In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and WingStreet, acquired Habit.[21] The brothers decided to retire and sell their remaining restaurants to Yum! Brands in 2021.[22] The operations shifted in March 2022.[23]
In July 2024, the restaurants switched soft drinks, as a result of Yum! Brands' acquisition, from Coca-Cola to Pepsi. On August 28, 2024, the company renamed its restaurant chain to Habit Burger & Grill.[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]
In 2021, Yum! Brands, with close to 50,000 locations globally across its KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and The Habit Burger Grill brands, released a global policy to transition to 100% cage-free eggs in the majority of its locations by 2026, and globally by 2030.[28]
