Before we had soup chains, salad chains, and non-GMO smoothie chains, there were burger chains.
It's no secret that Americans still love burgers, and more high-quality burger chains are popping up
across the country. Which are the latest to make their mark on the US's culinary landscape?
Perhaps you're familiar with YouTube sensation Jimmy Donaldson,
also known as MrBeast. According to Forbes, he was the second-highest paid YouTuber of 2020,
and thus far has garnered well over 50 million views for his most noted video,
"I Opened A Restaurant That Pays You To Eat At It." Of course, looks can be deceiving.
What the video doesn't really disclose is that MrBeast Burger isn't a restaurant at all. Rather,
it's a virtual dining concept that delivers food straight to your door with no physical location.
The ease of reproducing the idea notched MrBeast Burger hundreds of locations in less than a
year of operation. Leveraging off MrBeast's popularity, the chain has exploded onto the
virtual restaurant scene, sending out crispy smashed burgers in simple, familiar formats.
There's nothing groundbreaking on this menu, which consists of a burger, cheeseburger,
and bacon cheeseburger alongside fries and chicken sandwiches. But
with the combination of convenience and an Internet celebrity's name attached to it all,
MrBeast Burger has already become one of the biggest players in the game.
This 10-year-old burger chain based in Florida might be the most lauded new burger
joint to hit the scene in decades. Its collection of creative burgers
come from 100 percent American Angus beef, and each of its franchised and corporate stores
uses cage-free chicken as well. Want Wagyu beef on your burger? BurgerFi can do that too. That's
part of why none other than Martha Stewart joined BurgerFi's board of directors in 2021.
In its brief decade of existence, BurgerFi has racked up some pretty impressive hardware too,
notching Consumer Reports' accolades in 2020. QSR Magazine also thought enough
of BurgerFi to name them its Breakout Brand of 2020, while it also landed a spot on Fast
Casual's 100 Movers and Shakers list. BurgerFi doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon.
The trend of over-the-top, have-your-cardiologist-on-speed-dial
burgers seems to have subsided just a little bit in the past few years,
and while most restaurants aren't clamoring to see who can throw more heart-stopping
ingredients between a sesame seed bun, this California-based chain is quietly putting
out crazy stuff on a massive scale. Slater's 50/50 claims to have been the first burger
chain to use a patty that's half bacon and half beef, seriously ramping up the flavor.
Not content to pack flavor into the patty,
Slaters has also pioneered the most eye-catching burger creations of any chain in recent memory.
The Peanut Butter and Jellousy burger has Angus beef topped with thick cut bacon, peanut butter,
and jelly. Meanwhile, the 24K burger tops half a pound of Wagyu beef with truffle cheese,
arugula, roasted garlic aioli, bacon, and a brioche bun dusted in gold. No,
it's not exactly health food, but these are some truly unique burgers you won't find anywhere else.
"I don't believe in coddling people. In the wild, there is no health care."
Once upon a time, getting a legendary greasy, gooey Shake Shack burger and its trademark
crinkle fries meant going all the way to New York City and waiting in line to get one. But this is
not the case any longer, as Shake Shacks seem to be popping up faster than road construction
crews in nearly all of our major cities. Its plans for expansion are indeed aggressive.
According to Restaurant Dive, the company borrowed $225 million to support its growth.
Of course, you don't raise nearly a quarter billion dollars by throwing a greasy bag of food
on the table and waiting for the cash to roll in. Shake Shack's success has been proven. In 2018,
QSR Magazine reported that Shake Shack earned $630 million in sales,
averaging over $4 million per location. In 2019, Business Insider named it one
of its fastest-growing chains, with 27 percent growth that year.
In the restaurant industry, much like in life, it's important to learn from your mistakes.
Such is the case with Colorado-based Smashburger,
whose flat grill burger concept was poised for global dominance a decade ago,
before quickly learning it had expanded too fast. The result was a big-time brand contraction,
with 78 stores closing between 2018 and 2020, according to QSR Magazine. But Smashburger has
taken a step back, re-evaluated how to expand, and now plans to open 40 new locations in 2021.
The new Smashburger will be getting a new look, too. These will include city-specific designs,
more options for contactless pickup, and food lockers to keep orders warm while people wait.
Interestingly, Smashburger is not chasing down the ghost kitchen craze like some other chains.
Smashburger president Carl Bachmann told Business
Insider that fast casual is as much a real estate game as a food one. Instead,
he sees long-term value in real locations where customers can sit down to eat.
The smash burger style seems to be all the rage, where a high-fat meatball is pressed
onto a seasoned grill, and most of the fat is trapped inside the seared, caramelized
outside. But lest we forget there's a good number of people who prefer their burgers
with less grease and more smoke. And for that forgotten set, there is The Habit Burger Grill,
a Southern California-based chain that appreciates the beauty of a good charbroiled burger.
The chain that started in Santa Barbara, California in 1969 now boasts 280 locations in 14
states, as well as 11 overseas. But it's not just numbers that bode well for Habit Burger's success,
and the continued growth of The Habit Burger Grill seems a lot more likely
after Yum! Brands acquired Habit Burger in 2020 for a reported $375 million.
What started as a small midwestern custard stand raked in an astonishing $1.7 billion in sales
in 2019, and now lures in throngs of customers with its butter-basted burgers and fresh frozen
custards. A huge part of the Culver's appeal is the cholesterol-raising creation that is the
butterburger. That's where fresh beef is grilled, then placed on a bun painted with a generous
helping of — what else? — butter. It's a favorite in Wisconsin, where Culver's got its start,
and they're serving up stuff like cheese curds and frozen custards on Culver's dairy-heavy menu.
But it's not just cheese-happy Wisconsinites who love the stuff.
Thrillist named Culver's as one of the top regional fast-food chains in the country,
although calling it "regional' would be a bit of a stretch after the runaway expansion experienced
by Culver's in recent years. It's already landed itself at number 5 on Entrepreneur's
Franchise 500 list, Culver's third straight top 10 showing, and its highest ranking ever.
With celebrities and big names getting into the fast food biz, it might seem that the rich
and famous are suddenly discovering that fast-casual restaurants are an ideal way
to diversify their portfolios. It was early on that the Wahlberg brothers were in on the game,
starting the cleverly named Wahlburgers back in 2011 in Massachusetts. But
it wasn't New Kid on the Block Donnie or Entourage-inspiration Mark who got the inspiration
for this fast-growing burger chain. It was lesser-known brother Paul Wahlberg, a chef who
had a dream of starting a family-run restaurant and turned it into a 49-location juggernaut.
And while, yes, Wahlburgers still carries a famous name, the man who's overseeing the restaurant's
rapid expansion is actually CEO John Fuller. His plans, as he explained to the Boston Globe,
are to see the business expand to 300 locations in the next five years, with only 30 of those
corporate-owned. With locations in 20 states as well as Germany and Canada,
Wahlburgers clearly has the right stuff in the opinion of its many customers.
Yes, the name of this Pasadena, California-based chain of all-beef gourmet hot dogs might lead
one to think it's slightly misplaced in a list of up-and-coming burger chains.
But then one would also probably have never tried the chain's Hangover burger, made with American
cheese, smoked bacon, chili, and egg on a sweet Hawaiian roll. Because if those doubters had,
they'd immediately know the Dog Haus does burgers as well as it does upscale hot dogs.
The chain saw same-store sales up 13 percent in pandemic-plagued 2020,
a number bolstered mostly by Dog Haus' shift towards virtual kitchens and delivery-only
concepts. This uptick in revenue is part of the optimism Dog Haus has towards expansion,
bolstered by deals for up to 350 new locations signed back in 2017. And though that hoped-for
meteoric rise hasn't quite come to fruition yet, Dog Haus is still on track to open 15 new stores
in seven states. That's not to mention Dog Haus' Absolute Brands virtual kitchens,
which include a burger concept among their family of offerings.
While you're arguably not going to find a low-quality burger anywhere on this list, this
Austin-based chain of burger and beer joints takes the dedication to freshness to another level.
Not only are Hopdoddy's beef patties all ground in-house, but they also bake all their own bread,
surely a big reason why Thrillist named them one of the nation's most underrated burger chains.
They've also been given some serious accolades for their red velvet milkshakes;
they're made with actual red velvet cake, of course.
"Yummy."
Hopdoddy has taken a slower approach to expansion, as they have currently only
32 locations spread over five states. It's worth noting that only one of those states, Tennessee,
is east of the Mississippi. Still, the spot named after hops and the Scottish nickname for cows
saw impressive growth in the late 2010s, with a 55 percent increase in sales between 2016 and 2017.
Once venerable burger barons like Burger King decided to start putting plant-based burgers on
their menus, it was only a matter of time until we encountered an entire fast-casual restaurant full
of meatless meals. And so we have it with Next Level Burger, a Bend, Oregon-based burger spot,
that in true Oregon fashion gives us a menu of full plant-based burgers.
Founders Matt and Cierra de Gruyter started the spot in 2014 with an honest determination to help
change the world by promoting more sustainable eating habits. The result is a menu of sandwiches
you're not going to find at any other burger spot, all made with organic and non-GMO ingredients.
Next Level's even got a line of vegetarian "Chik'n" sandwiches too, and while it's not
yet challenging Popeyes for spicy supremacy, it's still a solid substitute. Next Level is
looking to change the way America eats burgers and is poised for breakout success soon.
Sometimes it takes a while for a classic to catch on. Or sometimes, like David Hasselhoff,
you have to find fame in another country before your home country can really appreciate you.
Such is the case with Wayback Burgers, which was founded in Delaware back in 1991
but never made much of a national splash. Fast forward to 2020, when one franchisee
in Manitoba was awarded a contract for a whopping 11 franchises in Canada,
immediately making them the fastest growing franchisee in the company.
That agreement is part of Wayback's Master Franchise program,
which has Wayback developing locations in 38 countries. Currently, the chain boasts
a respectable 153 locations in over 30 states and 10 countries but is poised for much more.
Its exponential franchise growth in the 2010s also helped land it on Franchise Chatter's list
of best hamburger franchises, in which the site also called out
Wayback's charitable work with the Boys and Girls Club as part of its appeal.
Oftentimes, it's better to be clever than big. That's clearly the philosophy in action
at Dallas-based Liberty Burger. Their menu of creative burgers includes names like Woodstock,
The Libertine, and Jackie O. Each description is written in the first person,
as if your prospective lunch is trying to sell you on its own merits. For example, The Nooner boasts:
"No need to change out of your sweatpants for me. In fact,
that elastic waistband might come in handy."
Despite having only six stores around the Dallas-Fort Worth area,
Liberty Burger still pops up on national lists
of best burger chains. QSR Magazine listed it on its list of 40 best fast-casual startups in 2020,
even though the chain has only been around since 2011. Franchise Chatter similarly cited Liberty
Burger on its list of best burger franchises of 2017-2018, calling out the alcoholic milkshakes
and local Texas beers as big reasons why Liberty Burger stands out amongst the crowd.
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