Texas Hot Chicken Chain Tumble 22 Gets New Corporate Overlords
Hot chicken from Tumble 22.
Tumble 22, the Nashville-style hot chicken mini-chain with five locations in the Austin area and Houston, was acquired by two private equity firms and the former chief operating officer of steakhouse chain restaurant Texas Roadhouse. The acquisition was announced on October 25.
Tumble 22 is the brainchild of chef Harold Marmulstein (who runs New American restaurant Salty Sow) and the Guy + Larry Restaurants company, aka Guy Villavaso and Larry Foles, longtime Austin restauranteurs who have owned Z’Tejas Southwestern Grille, Eddie V’s Prime Seafood (which they sold in 2011 to Darden Restaurants), Hopdoddy Burger Bar, and Roaring Fork.
Tumble 22 opened as a food truck in 2017 on West Fifth Street and quickly became known for very spicy Nashville-style hot chicken sandwiches and sides. The first physical restaurant location opened on Burnet Road in 2018. The food truck eventually closed in 2019, but new sites popped up in Houston and on Lake Austin Boulevard in 2020, and in Round Rock in 2021.
The new owners are private equity firms Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co., Rosser Capital Partners, and Doug Thompson, former chief operating officer of Texas Roadhouse. The private equity firms also own chains like California Pizza Kitchen, Golden Corral, and Au Bon Pain. The press release states that, from now on, Guy + Larry Restaurants will maintain an ownership position in the company but that Thompson will be CEO, and the chain has plans for growth in “new and existing markets.”
Marmulstein’s name is notably missing from the press release, but he tells Eater this was an oversight and that he will be in a consulting role with Tumble 22 for the next six months.