Trill Burgers: The Bun B Smash Burger Spot Houston Built

Trill Burgers is the Houston smash-burger spot the city actually built itself — a Bun B partnership that started as a 2021 pandemic pop-up, won Good Morning America's national burger competition in 2022, and now operates a permanent Upper Kirby restaurant plus concessions inside NRG Stadium. If you've heard the name and never been, or you went once before the brick-and-mortar opened, here is the current state of the operation.

Co-founder Bernard "Bun B" Freeman — one half of UGK, longtime Trae tha Truth collaborator, and a Houston cultural fixture — teamed up with chef Andy Nguyen and partner Nick Scurfield in the summer of 2021 to launch the brand as a pop-up. The premise was simple: a thin, crispy-edged smash patty made from 44 Farms Texas beef, caramelized onions, pickles, American cheese, and a proprietary "Trill sauce" on a soft potato bun. It picked up a national audience fast.

Why Trill Burgers matters in Houston

Houston has plenty of celebrity-tied restaurants, and most of them are forgettable. Trill Burgers isn’t. Part of that is the cooking — the smash technique here is real, not a marketing line — and part of it is the ownership story. This is a Houston-built brand, run by Houston people, that beat heavyweights from Philadelphia, Miami, and Atlanta in the GMA "United States of Burgers" tournament in July 2022 and walked off with a $10,000 prize and a national headline.

The Upper Kirby flagship at 3607 S. Shepherd Drive is the proof of concept. It opened June 7, 2023 — drive-thru, dine-in, and patio under one roof, in a part of town with no shortage of burger options. The neighborhood’s other dining anchors are covered in our best restaurants in Upper Kirby guide, and Trill earned its way into that conversation quickly.

The OG Trill Burger and the rest of the menu

The headline item is the OG Trill Burger: two smashed 44 Farms beef patties, American cheese, caramelized onions, pickles, and Trill sauce on a toasted potato bun. The OG Burger combo with seasoned fries and a drink runs around $15.28, and Trill offers a triple-patty version for bigger appetites along with a vegan smash-style option built on a plant-based patty.

Beyond the burgers, the menu carries a small, tight rotation:

• Trill Tenders — hand-breaded chicken tenders served with house dipping sauces
• Seasoned fries, the standard side and the right call most days
• Fresh-squeezed Trill Lemonade and "dirty soda" pours
• Bottled Trill OG Orange Soda, the house soft drink, sold on its own for around $5

It is not a sprawling menu, and that is the point. Trill does a few things and finishes them. If you want a roundup of the wider Houston burger scene — Burger-Chan, Stanton’s, Bernie’s, the rest of the field — Chris Shepherd’s Houston burger rundown is a useful companion read.

Locations: Upper Kirby, NRG Stadium, Spring, and Missouri City

Trill Burgers now operates four Houston-area touchpoints. The flagship is the Upper Kirby location at 3607 S. Shepherd Drive (77098), with a dining room open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday through Sunday. The drive-thru runs 9 p.m. to midnight every night for late orders.

A second location opened on Louetta Road in Spring in April 2025, serving the north Harris County side of town. A third — the first ground-up build in the brand’s portfolio — opened in Missouri City on December 10, 2025, at 20220 Fort Bend Parkway, with a grand-opening celebration in January 2026. We covered that opening in our story on the Fort Bend Town Center debut.

On Texans gamedays, Trill Burgers runs Aramark-partnered concession stands inside NRG Stadium at sections 115, 135, 522, and 548 — making it the only Houston smash-burger brand currently selling on the NFL stadium floor. For background on the expansion timeline, see our reporting on the Trill Burgers Houston expansion.

What it is actually like to visit

The Upper Kirby location is order-at-the-counter, not table-service. You walk in, place an order at the register or a kiosk, grab a number, and the kitchen runs it out. Seating is split between an indoor dining room and an outdoor patio, with a separate drive-thru lane around the back. Weekend lines are real, especially at lunch and after late-night events — plan around them or use the drive-thru window for pickup.

Parking is on-site and shared with the neighboring strip. The neighborhood is dense enough that walking from the Highland Village area or rideshare-ing from a Montrose dinner is the easier move. The brand’s Upper Kirby neighborhood setting puts it inside the Loop, five minutes from River Oaks and ten from downtown, so it’s a convenient pin no matter where in the inner-loop you start.

How Trill compares to the Houston smash-burger field

Houston’s smash-burger lane is competitive. Burger-Chan in Greenway Plaza built its reputation on a tight, refined patty. Bernie’s Burger Bus runs a food-truck-to-brick-and-mortar story of its own. Stanton’s City Bites near Midtown is the old-school holdout. Trill’s edge is the combination: a strong technical patty plus a national brand story that puts it in conversations the others aren’t in.

Trill also leans into catering and brand collaborations in a way most independent burger spots don’t. The brand makes regular RodeoHouston appearances, runs limited-time menu drops, and partners with apparel and beverage brands tied to Houston’s music scene. If you want context on what else has opened recently in the same lane, our roundup of Houston’s newest restaurants tracks the wider field.

Plan your visit

• Upper Kirby (flagship): 3607 S. Shepherd Drive, Houston, TX 77098 — drive-thru and dine-in
• Spring: 6810 Louetta Road — opened April 2025
• Missouri City: 20220 Fort Bend Parkway — opened December 2025
• NRG Stadium: concession stands at sections 115, 135, 522, and 548 (Texans gamedays)
• Phone (Upper Kirby): (713) 364-2284
• Order online: trillburgers.com or via DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Caviar

For Houston Texans fans, the NRG concession means you no longer have to choose between the game and the burger. For everyone else, the flagship at S. Shepherd is the move. It is one of the rare celebrity-backed restaurants in the city that earns its line — and it is now a permanent fixture of the local food landscape, not a moment.