Velvet Taco does not look like a chain. The menu jumps from Korean fried chicken tacos to a shrimp-and-grits taco to a rotating Weekly Taco Feature, the rooms have a scuffed, half-finished feel, and nothing about it reads corporate. That is the point. It is also why people are surprised to learn who actually owns it.
The short answer: Velvet Taco is a chain
Velvet Taco is a chain. It grew from one Dallas restaurant in 2011 to 54 US locations in eight states by November 2025, and since 2021 the majority owner has been Leonard Green & Partners, a Los Angeles private equity firm with tens of billions under management.
A restaurant owned by a private equity fund is about as far from locally owned as a restaurant can get. The upside flows to the fund's limited partners, and the fund's job is to grow the brand and sell it again. That is normal, legal, and not a secret. It is just not what most people picture when they walk into a Velvet Taco.
| Question | Velvet Taco |
|---|---|
| Is it a chain? | Yes |
| Who owns it? | Leonard Green & Partners (majority, since Nov. 2021); L Catterton and FB Society (minority) |
| Publicly traded? | No, privately held |
| US locations | 54 in 8 states (Nov. 2025), plus 1 franchised location in London |
| Franchised? | US restaurants are company-owned; only international units are franchised |
| Founded | 2011, Dallas, Texas, by Front Burner Restaurants (Randy DeWitt) |
| Locally owned? | No |
Who owns Velvet Taco? The money trail
Velvet Taco was never a two-friends-and-a-taco-cart story. It was dreamed up inside Front Burner Restaurants, the Dallas restaurant group run by Randy DeWitt that also created Twin Peaks and Whiskey Cake. The first Velvet Taco opened in Dallas in 2011 as one of that group's concepts.
In September 2016, with four restaurants open (Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago) and Austin on the way, the brand took a growth investment from L Catterton, the consumer-focused private equity firm backed by LVMH. Trade coverage described L Catterton as the majority owner from that point.
On November 30, 2021, Leonard Green & Partners bought a majority stake from L Catterton and FB Society (Front Burner's new name). Terms were not disclosed. Both sellers kept what the announcement called significant minority stakes, so the cap table today is Leonard Green on top, with L Catterton and FB Society still holding pieces. Velvet Taco had almost 30 restaurants in six states when that deal closed.
Leadership changed in late 2025. Clay Dover, CEO since 2017, stepped down in November and later took the top job at Savory Fund. In December 2025 the board hired Chris Schultz, who had spent eight years running Voodoo Doughnut, as CEO. As of early 2026 there has been no announced sale or IPO, and Velvet Taco remains a private company with no stock ticker.
Is Velvet Taco a franchise, and how many locations are there?
Inside the US, no. Every domestic Velvet Taco is owned and operated by the company. Management has said US restaurants will stay company-owned for now, which is one reason the brand feels consistent from Dallas to Atlanta to Chicago.
International is a different model. The London restaurant near Piccadilly Circus, which opened in November 2025, is run by a franchise partner, Velvet Taco UK Ltd., under a multi-unit agreement. More overseas franchising is planned.
As of November 2025 the count stood at 54 US restaurants across eight states: Texas, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arizona and Florida. Roughly two thirds are in Texas, mostly around Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. The company has talked publicly about reaching around 200 locations by 2030, including international sites.
Why Velvet Taco feels independent when it is not
The whole brand is built to not look like a chain. The menu is weird in a good way, the Weekly Taco Feature changes every week, and the rooms feel like a one-off somebody opened on a dare.
It also has a real Dallas origin. That first restaurant is what people remember, and a Texas-born brand with a rotating chef-driven menu does not pattern-match to the fast-food chains people are used to spotting.
- A chef-driven, globally inspired menu. Rotating specials and unusual combinations read as independent, even though a corporate culinary team develops them.
- Deliberately non-chain design. Each room is styled to feel a little different, which hides the fact that there are 54 of them.
- A Dallas origin story that predates the private equity years. The 2011 founding is true. The ownership just changed twice since then.
Is that a bad thing?
Not automatically. The tacos are genuinely creative, the kitchens make a lot from scratch, and the chain posted nearly $148 million in sales in 2024 because plenty of people like eating there. Being a chain does not make the food bad.
But if you picked Velvet Taco to support a local, independent restaurant, that is not what happened. Your money went to a company whose majority owner is a Los Angeles buyout fund, and that company is very good at not looking like one.
A weird menu and a scuffed-up room are branding. They do not change who owns the company.
How to find genuinely independent tacos
Every city Velvet Taco operates in has owner-run taquerias, many of them family businesses that have been open longer than Velvet Taco has existed. Google Maps and Yelp bury them under the chains and the sponsored results.
Anything But A Chain maps only independent, locally owned restaurants and filters every chain out automatically, Velvet Taco included. Open it, search tacos near you, and everything you see is the real thing.