Smashburger Rebuilds Brand Identity and Growth Potential
At the start of 2025, Smashburger found itself “a little lost” on multiple fronts, including brand positioning, according to cofounder Tom Ryan.
The 190-unit chain’s ethos had become fuzzy over the past six to seven years, and Ryan believes several executives who came in and out of the business during this period didn’t have a foundational understanding of why Smashburger was developed in the first place and what its core tenets were.
Jim Sullivan, who joined the team as chief development officer in June 2024, was elevated to brand president in February 2025 and CEO in August 2025. Alongside his rise, Ryan made his return to the company.
“Jim asked me as the founder to come back and bring those elements back, but to express it into the market in a more modern way than the first time we did it back in 2007,” Ryan says.
Before founding the company 19 years ago, Ryan and Rick Schaden saw a marketplace filled with burgers, but none that were properly capitalizing on consumer demand for higher quality. So when the duo formed the brand, they went out of their way to find ingredients, methods, recipes, and other culinary elements that “put differentiated great taste back into a core burger menu,” in addition to French fries and hand-spun milkshakes made with Haagen-Dazs ice cream, according to Ryan.
To recapture this excitement, Smashburger unveiled a modernized logo last year with its original black, red, and white color schemes. The fast casual has implemented the updated branding in its emails, app, and website. In-restaurant features like physical aesthetics, packaging, uniforms, and merchandising are on their way. As of late February, the brand was interviewing multiple design firms to help bring its revitalized ethos to life inside stores across the country.
The brand positioning is designed to reinvigorate passion. Smashburger wants it to reach everyone who touches the brand, from employees at the home office to franchisees and hourly workers at the store level and consumers nationwide.
Smashburger also turned “Belief is in the Bite” into its tagline. Ryan views it as a clear promise that “you’re a bite away from believing this is the best burger you’ve ever had.”
“We smash burgers the right way,” Ryan says. “It’s not that you smash, it’s what you smash and how you smash that makes a difference. And it’s been a little diluted because a lot of people are calling themselves smash burger but doing it wrong. Quite frankly, some of them aren’t doing it at all. And so the whole notion underneath the brand positioning is really a refocus on our ethos of great taste, great taste, great taste, and obviously service and variety and value needs to be part of that in the modern day.”
The resurgence is also demonstrated through product innovation.
Smashburger reorganized its marketing calendar into quarterly, thematic releases. To kick off 2026, the fast casual unveiled a new Scorchin’ lineup, led by the Scorchin’ Cheesy Mac Smash (an improvement from a previous item in 2022), Scorchin’ Big Dog (a twist on an item launched last summer), and Scorchin’ Chicken Smash (part of the $4.99 All-The-Time Value Menu).
The innovation trickles down to other parts of the menu: Scorchin’ Fries, Scorchin’ Tots, Scorchin’ Chicken Tenders, the Scorchin’ Crispy Chicken Sandwich, and a cup of Scorchin’ Cheesy Mac.
“It’s Burn with Benefits because we think our hot food is more than just hot. It actually has really full flavor with a little heat component that builds over time, but the undercard on this was our approach in the wintertime that people are really looking for indulgence,” Ryan says.
And for Lenten season, Smashburger launched a platform of shrimp-based items, including the Big Shrimp Roll and Shrimp Basket, and a Scorchin’ version of each item. The lineup launched two weeks before Lent and will remain two weeks after it’s over.
Thus far, the changes have led to a “significant swing” in average daily traffic and average daily sales, according to Sullivan.
More importantly, the new $4.99 value platform hasn’t detracted guests from ordering core menu items. Smashburger has also found that guests will order multiple entrées from the value menu, raising average check.
“We get asked all the time like, ‘How can you guys do this? How can you guys do this?'” says Ryan, referring to regularly-sized burgers and sandwiches being placed on the $4.99 menu. “I mean it’s the same burger, it’s the same bun. And the truth of the matter is that the strength of our core menu, the tenacity of our original core menu, everything from Classic to Truffle Mushroom Swiss, those things have not eroded at all as a consequence of the addition of the value menu. I also think that the ability to do and be aggressive on $4.99 is the fact that we’re still really buoyant with our original core menu at the original price points.”
Smashburger’s goal is to combine menu improvements with a meticulous focus on hospitality. Every employee at Smashburger will be retrained and recertified on “gold standard service and hospitality,” Sullivan says.
The CEO wants better execution within the four walls. But off-premises guests aren’t to be forgotten either.
“I’m a firm believer that the best experience we can deliver is within the restaurant. The best food experience you’ll have in a Smashburger is when you get our food fresh and you get to enjoy it within the four walls of our restaurant,” Sullivan says. “But the business has transformed so much over the last decade that 30 percent of our revenue goes to third party, and that’s a good number for us and that’s where we want to stay. We don’t need that to be 50, 60 percent. We don’t need that to be 5, 10 percent. It’s a nice steady, predictable line of revenue for us today. But we have to make sure that those consumers that are using that channel, they get this experience.”
In terms of development, Sullivan says Smashburger has “massive whitespace” across North America. The chain expects to return to positive net unit growth sometime between 2026 and 2027. This year, Smashburger plans to open 15 restaurants, 13 of which will be nontraditional, such as military bases and airports.
The chain is actively working with existing operators and recruiting new franchisees. Sullivan says Smashburger could “easily add” 1,000 traditional U.S. units without cannibalizing itself, most of them coming from the franchise community. That’s not counting 1,000 to 1,500 more nontraditional locations.
“I wouldn’t even call it step change,” the CEO says. “It’s been transformational what this brand has done over the last 12 months and it’s really become front of mind for the consumer again. And I would say that we’ve rebuilt our premium position. And we’ll continue to build on that premium position.”