The Habit Burger Grill



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. It was founded in 1969 at Santa Barbara, California, and its headquarters are in Irvine, California.

In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Wingstreet, acquired The Habit Burger Grill.

History
The Habit Burger Grill was founded on November 15, 1969, in Santa Barbara County, California, as a family-owned business. It originally operated under the name Hamburger Habit.

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.

In 2007, KarpReilly, a private equity firm, acquired a majority ownership in the company and began to rapidly expand the chain, including franchising. Not included in the sale were the eight locations in Santa Barbara County, California, which remained under the ownership of the Reichard brothers.

In 2014, Habit had 109 locations either open for business or under construction, including an expansion into Seattle. 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. In November 2014, the company raised $83.7 million in an initial public offering. The share price immediately doubled. By 2016, growth had slowed significantly, in line with the burger business.

In 2017, the company announced plans to expand into the United Kingdom with 30 restaurants.

In March 2020, Yum! Brands, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Wingstreet, acquired Habit. The brothers decided to retire and sell their remaining restaurants to Yum! Brands in 2021. The operations shifted in March 2022.

Locations
As of May 2024, Habit Burger Grill had 372 locations, mostly in California, as follows:

The company also has a fleet of nine food trucks.

Reception
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.