The FAT Brands three-way.

Under one publicly-traded holding company, three burger chains cook fries in three different ways. Fatburger (acquired at origin in 2003), Elevation Burger (acquired 2019 for $10 million), and Johnny Rockets (acquired 2020 for $25 million) all sit inside FAT Brands, along with Round Table Pizza, Twin Peaks, Smokey Bones, and a dozen other franchised concepts. And yet somehow, each burger chain runs its fryer on a different philosophy.

It's worth the walk-through, because it illustrates something important: when a holding company acquires a restaurant chain, the fry recipe is typically the last thing they touch. The coffee program, the point-of-sale system, the marketing, the loyalty app — those get harmonized within eighteen months. The fryer? The fryer stays whatever it was at acquisition. That's why FAT Brands, seven years into its roll-up strategy, still has three different fry setups across its three better-burger concepts.

Elevation Burger: the outlier on the all-green list.

Elevation Burger was founded in 2005 in Falls Church, Virginia, as the first nationally-minded organic burger chain. FAT Brands acquired it from Sun Capital Partners in June 2019 for roughly $10 million — a remarkably low price for a chain that was already running a dedicated-fryer operation with olive oil (the only national chain doing that), and had built a reputation around organic grass-fed beef. Sun Capital had picked Elevation up cheaply and sold it cheaply; FAT Brands inherited the operational commitments.

Post-acquisition, FAT Brands has kept the olive-oil commitment, kept the dedicated-fryer commitment, and actually improved the setup — by recent years, Elevation has transitioned all its breaded items (chicken tenders, onion rings) to gluten-free breading, making the entire fryer safe for celiacs. That's an operational investment that must have survived multiple round of budget reviews. It's also the reason Elevation Burger is the eighth chain on the Cold Eight.

Johnny Rockets: the pattern that isn't quite consistent.

Johnny Rockets is the 1986-founded fast-casual diner chain known for its 1950s theming, Melrose Avenue origin, and location-heavy dependency on airports and theme parks. FAT Brands picked it up from Sun Capital (the same private equity seller that sold them Elevation) in August 2020 for $25 million.

Johnny Rockets documents its fryer as 100% soybean oil. Unlike Elevation, it has no chain-wide dedicated-fryer commitment — the allergen PDF notes that fried items share equipment. But the field reports are more inconsistent than almost any chain we've researched. Some Johnny Rockets locations run a dedicated fry fryer (celiac patrons have confirmed this, including at airport-based Knott's Berry Farm and Hollywood stores). Other locations run a single fryer with tots, fries, and chicken strips sharing oil. Some have Udi's gluten-free buns; some don't.

What's interesting is that this variance has survived acquisition. Franchise agreements, airport concessions, and theme-park license deals create enough local autonomy that the holding company hasn't imposed a uniform fryer policy. If you're celiac and you're considering Johnny Rockets, the only correct answer is "call your specific location."

Fatburger: the vegetable-oil middle.

Fatburger is the flagship and origin. Founded 1952 in Los Angeles by Lovie Yancey, acquired by FAT Brands' predecessor Fatburger Holdings in 2003, it's the chain that gave the parent company its name. And it runs the most unsurprising fry setup of the three: vegetable oil blend (standard QSR soybean/canola), shared fryer with breaded chicken and onion rings, two fry cuts (Fat Fries thick-cut, Skinny Fries shoestring), and standard shared-fryer caveats.

Crucially: Fatburger does not cook in beef tallow, despite the obvious L.A.-diner heritage that would make tallow an easy brand commitment. And despite the fact that its biggest direct competitor in the better-burger space (Smashburger, Jollibee-owned) does use beef tallow. Fatburger's fryer is vegetable. This is both a vegetarian win (the fries are plant-based by ingredient) and a flavor-profile decision — Fatburger is competing on patty weight and toppings, not on the fry medium.

One parent, three philosophies.

So here's where the three chains sit on Frypedia:

Elevation Burger: olive oil, dedicated fryer, entire fryer gluten-free. All-green.
Fatburger: vegetable oil, shared fryer, vegetarian-safe. Caution.
Johnny Rockets: soybean oil, variable fryer policy. Caution (with location-dependent upside).

Three fryer philosophies, one holding company. If FAT Brands ever standardized the fry program across its burger concepts, they could make Fatburger all-green overnight (add a dedicated fryer, replicate the Elevation breading-swap) or drag Elevation Burger down to the middle (share equipment, save money). Neither has happened. The inheritance holds.

The awkward footnote: FAT Brands filed Chapter 11.

In January 2026 — three months ago as we write this — FAT Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, listing assets and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion. The reorganization is still in process. The burger chains continue to operate; franchises haven't been shed en masse; the fry programs haven't changed.

But the bankruptcy puts pressure on exactly the kind of operational commitment that keeps Elevation Burger on the Cold Eight. A dedicated fryer costs more than a shared fryer. Olive oil costs more than canola. Gluten-free breading costs more than standard wheat breading. In a cost-cutting reorganization, these are the decisions that come up for review. We'll be watching — and we'll update the Elevation Burger page immediately if anything changes. If any chain is likely to shift off the Cold Eight list in the next year, Elevation Burger is the one to watch.

The broader point: what looks like a stable brand commitment is sometimes an operational habit that survived the last five ownership changes, and sometimes it doesn't survive the next one. The Cold Eight is a snapshot, not a permanent state. The fryer at every chain is one recipe-review meeting away from moving.

May 2026 update: the sale.

Four months after the Chapter 11 filing, the bankruptcy court approved the sale of FAT Brands assets through a series of transactions totaling just under $1 billion, against roughly $1.4 billion in debt. The result reshapes the three-way:

Elevation Burger → Tabco International Food Catering. The Kuwait-based foodservice group picked up Elevation Burger for $2.5 million in cash. For a chain that commits to olive oil, dedicated fryers, and gluten-free breading across the entire fryer, that's a surprisingly modest sale price — roughly a quarter of what FAT Brands paid Sun Capital for the same chain in 2019. New ownership has signaled it will keep the operational commitments; the Cold Eight listing stands for now, with a corrections-watch flag.

Fatburger, Johnny Rockets, and most of the rest → FBG Bid Co. The lender-group buyer (FBG Bid Co.) acquired the bulk of the FAT Brands portfolio in a $595 million debt-to-equity transaction — Fatburger, Johnny Rockets, Round Table Pizza, Fazoli's, Great American Cookies, Marble Slab Creamery, Pretzelmaker, Hurricane Grill and Wings, Buffalo's Cafe, Native Grill and Wings, Yalla Mediterranean, and Ponderosa & Bonanza all moved together. Day-to-day operations are continuing. The fry recipes at Fatburger and Johnny Rockets are unchanged. The variance that's survived every previous ownership change — the per-chain fryer philosophy — has survived this one too.

Twin Peaks → TWNPKS Bid Co. Separately acquired in a $359 million debt transaction. Not a burger chain, so not part of our three-way, but worth noting as the single largest-value piece of the FAT Brands estate.

Smokey Bones: closed. The 61-location barbecue chain, which FAT Brands acquired for $30 million in 2023, shuttered every US location on April 30, 2026 — a few weeks before the sale approvals were handed down. Smokey Bones was the only FAT Brands property to simply stop operating during the bankruptcy; the rest found buyers.

The irony sitting at the center of this: the sale decoupled the three burger chains and sent them to three different outcomes (new foreign owner for Elevation, lender-group recapitalization for Fatburger and Johnny Rockets, unchanged for all practical operational purposes). But the fry programs stayed the same. Which is to say: the Cold Eight entry for Elevation Burger, the standard-shared-fryer verdict for Fatburger, and the "call your location" verdict for Johnny Rockets all remain exactly as they were before Chapter 11. The holding company changed hands — the fryer did not.

Watch the Elevation Burger page for any post-acquisition change. If Tabco economizes on the olive oil or the dedicated fryer, that's the chain that comes off the Cold Eight list. For now, nothing has moved.