Jaggers is on track to open up to eight new restaurants in 2026, the fastest growth year in the brand’s history and a deliberate signal from parent company Texas Roadhouse Inc. that fast casual is finally moving from sideline experiment to growth engine. The brand is also, for the first time, openly positioning itself for international development.
Jaggers is a fast-casual restaurant brand owned by Texas Roadhouse, Inc., founded in 2014 by Kent Taylor in Noblesville, Indiana, serving double-stacked burgers, hand-breaded chicken sandwiches, made-to-order salads, and hand-spun milkshakes.
Founder Kent Taylor framed Jaggers around a deceptively simple question: what if Chick-fil-A and Five Guys merged? The result is a menu engineered to compete with two of the most defensible chains in American fast casual on their respective home turfs — premium burgers and craveable chicken.
For Texas Roadhouse Inc., which generates the overwhelming majority of revenue from its 800+ casual-dining flagship, Jaggers represents the most credible diversification path on the table. The casual-dining giant has now committed publicly to ramp development of its smaller concepts in 2026, with Jaggers leading that push.
Jaggers has historically operated as a slow-build concept. Through 2025, the brand held a modest footprint of roughly 16 locations, the majority company-owned, with franchisees in Texas opening units in Katy and Longview, and a third location announced for Texarkana in 2026.
For 2026, parent company guidance is more aggressive: up to five new company-owned restaurants and four additional franchise openings, putting total system size in striking distance of the brand’s stated near-term cap of around 30 units.
Burgers and fried chicken sandwiches occupy two of the fastest-growing fast-casual categories in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — markets where consumer spend on premium quick-service has been rising steadily. Jaggers’ positioning between Five Guys and Chick-fil-A places it in an underserved bracket across Asia and MENA: above mass quick-service, below sit-down casual.
The chicken side of the menu is especially significant. Halal-compatible chicken sandwich brands have outperformed every other fast-casual sub-segment in Saudi Arabia and the UAE over the past three years, a trend mirrored by the rapid scaling of regional players such as AseerTime and other GCC-born concepts.
Three factors stand out. First, parent backing — Texas Roadhouse Inc. is a publicly listed operator with the balance sheet and supply chain to support international expansion in a way few emerging fast-casual concepts can match. Second, system discipline — the brand has resisted overexpansion, preserving unit economics and territory value for early international partners. Third, menu defensibility — the dual burger-and-chicken proposition reduces dependence on any single category.
Unlike Five Guys, which has saturated most Tier-1 international markets, Jaggers remains in the early phase of international development, meaning white-space territories are still available. Compared with Raising Cane’s, which has tightly held its single-product chicken model, Jaggers’ broader menu offers more daypart flexibility — important for landlords in mall and lifestyle-center formats common across Southeast Asia and the GCC. The brand also sits alongside other casual-dining-parent fast-casual experiments like those discussed in our coverage of PizzaExpress and global casual-dining peers.
Jaggers is a fast-casual restaurant brand owned by Texas Roadhouse, Inc., founded in 2014 in Noblesville, Indiana. The menu centers on double-stacked burgers, hand-breaded chicken sandwiches, salads, and milkshakes.
As of early 2026, Jaggers operates approximately 16 locations across the United States, with up to eight additional units planned to open during 2026.
Yes. Jaggers states publicly via its official website that it is open to both domestic and international franchise opportunities.
For investors evaluating fast-casual master franchise opportunities, Jaggers sits in a rare position: a brand with public-company parentage, a tested unit model, intentional scarcity, and an international roadmap that is only now beginning to open. The next 18 months — as the brand approaches its 30-unit cap and weighs its first overseas commitments — will determine which markets become priority territories. For Asia and MENA operators with experience scaling burger or chicken QSR formats, the window to engage is unusually clear.
This article was prepared by the VF Franchise Consulting editorial team — with over 30 years of experience in international franchise development, master franchise advisory, and brand expansion across Asia and the Middle East.
