Hopdoddy has the craft-burger look down. Buns baked in house, beef ground on site, a line down the sidewalk at 1400 South Congress. Plenty of Austinites still file it under local. The ownership chart stopped agreeing with them years ago.
Is Hopdoddy a chain? Yes, 47 locations and counting
Hopdoddy is a chain. It has 47 restaurants in eight states, more than 30 of them in Texas, and the private equity firm L Catterton has backed it since 2014. In June 2026 it was sold to Founders Table Restaurant Group, the New York company behind Chopt and Dos Toros, which L Catterton also owns.
A burger bar whose owner runs more than 200 restaurants and answers to a private equity fund is not independent, however good the patty.
| Question | Hopdoddy |
|---|---|
| Is it a chain? | Yes |
| Who owns it? | Founders Table Restaurant Group (since June 2026), controlled by private equity firm L Catterton |
| Publicly traded? | No. Privately held |
| Franchised? | Mostly company-run so far. The new owner plans licensed and franchised units in non-traditional venues |
| US locations | 47 in eight states as of June 2026, more than 30 in Texas |
| Founded | 2010, South Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas |
| Locally owned? | No |
Who owns Hopdoddy? Follow the money
Four Austin restaurateurs opened the first Hopdoddy in 2010: Guy Villavaso, Larry Foles, Larry Perdido and Chuck Smith. They were not first-timers. Foles and Villavaso had built Eddie V's Prime Seafood and sold it to Darden for $59 million in 2011. Hopdoddy was a professional growth concept from day one, even if it felt like a neighborhood joint.
L Catterton, which describes itself as the largest consumer-focused private equity firm in the world, invested in January 2014. Jeff Chandler came in as CEO when the chain had 16 units and ran it for about a decade. In January 2022 Hopdoddy bought Grub Burger Bar, and the two were combined into a new L Catterton-backed company, HiBar Hospitality Group, with 50 restaurants between them.
The latest turn came on June 24, 2026, when Founders Table Restaurant Group announced it was acquiring Hopdoddy. Founders Table was formed in January 2020 when Chopt merged with Dos Toros in a deal financed by L Catterton, and it has since added Protein Bar & Kitchen and Field Trip. Terms were not disclosed. Chandler moved to an advisory role, longtime operations chief Kenny Jett became Hopdoddy's president, and Founders Table CEO Nick Marsh now sits at the top of the chart.
Is Hopdoddy publicly traded?
No. There is no Hopdoddy stock and no ticker. Founders Table is a private company, and its controlling investor is L Catterton, a private equity firm. The money is institutional rather than public. For a diner the distinction is small: neither a fund nor a shareholder base lives in your neighborhood.
Is Hopdoddy a franchise?
For most of its life, no. Hopdoddy grew with company-owned restaurants run by salaried managers, which is part of why the food stayed consistent from Austin to Nashville. That is changing. Founders Table said Hopdoddy would be folded into its non-traditional licensing and franchising program, which already has more than 50 locations open or in development, and it named healthcare, education and transportation centers as targets. Expect Hopdoddy counters in airports, hospitals and on campuses, run by licensees.
Either way, the brand is not independent. A franchised Hopdoddy is a chain unit with a local operator. A company-owned one is a chain unit without one.
How many Hopdoddy locations are there?
47 as of June 2026, in Texas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida and Louisiana. Texas accounts for more than 30, clustered around Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio. Founders Table's stated approach is deep penetration of core regions rather than a coast-to-coast sprint, so the Texas count will likely keep climbing.
Why Hopdoddy feels independent when it is not
The origin story is real and it is good marketing. One burger bar on South Congress in 2010, everything made from scratch, a cult following. Hopdoddy's own website still calls that location the one that started it all. The story sticks long after the company scales.
The craft language helps too. Buns baked in house, beef ground on site, local-sounding specials. It all reads as a one-off.
- A genuine Austin origin story people still remember.
- Craft-burger branding: house buns, fresh-ground beef, rotating specials.
- A founder-driven image that outlived the founders' involvement and two changes of corporate parent.
Is that a bad thing?
Not necessarily. The burgers are solid, the made-to-order approach is real, and a restaurant averaging nearly $2.9 million a year is doing something right. Being a chain does not make the food bad.
But if you went to Hopdoddy to support a local Austin business, that is no longer what it is. It is a multi-state chain owned by a New York restaurant group that is itself owned by a private equity firm.
Made from scratch and locally owned are different claims. Hopdoddy can be the first without being the second.
How to find genuinely independent burgers
Austin alone has a deep bench of owner-run burger spots, and so does almost every other city. The trouble is that Google Maps and Yelp bury them under the chains and the ads.
Anything But A Chain maps only independent, locally owned restaurants and filters every chain out automatically, Hopdoddy included. Open it, search burgers near you, and everything you see is the real thing.