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Formerly | The Habit Burger Grill |
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Company type | Subsidiary |
Nasdaq: HABT | |
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 | Shannon Hennessy (CEO) Tiffany Furman (CFO) |
Products |
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Revenue | ![]() |
Number of employees | 6,093 (2021) |
Parent | Yum! Brands |
Website | habitburger |
Habit Burger & Grill, formerly known as 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, and Taco Bell, 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] It originally operated under the name Hamburger Habit. [8]
In 1980, Brent and Bruce Reichard purchased the original location in Goleta. A second location opened in Ventura in 1997. [9] They gradually grew the chain to 17 units in Southern California. [9]
In 2007, KarpReilly, a private equity firm, acquired a majority ownership in the company and began to rapidly expand the chain, including franchising. [10] 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. [11] 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. [12] In November 2014, the company raised $83.7 million in an initial public offering. [13] [14] [15] The share price immediately doubled. [16] By 2016, growth had slowed significantly, in line with the burger business. [17]
In 2017, the company announced plans to expand into the United Kingdom with 30 restaurants. [18]
In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and WingStreet, acquired Habit. [19] The brothers decided to retire and sell their remaining restaurants to Yum! Brands in 2021. [20] The operations shifted in March 2022. [21]
July 2024 saw its restaurants switch soft drinks, as a result of Yum! Brands' acquisition, from Coca-Cola to Pepsi.
On August 28, 2024, the company renamed itself from The Habit Burger Grill to Habit Burger & Grill. [22]
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. [23] [24] [25]