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 runs three brick-and-mortar restaurants 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.

On July 29, 2022, Trill competed live from Times Square in the final of Good Morning America’s “United States of Burgers” tournament against Lucky’s Last Chance of Philadelphia, The Companion of Atlanta, and Babe’s Meat & Counter of Miami. Bun B cooked alongside Trill chef Mike Pham, took three of the five judges’ votes, and walked off with the $10,000 grand prize and the Golden Burger Trophy. The burger they sent up was the OG: 44 Farms beef, Trill sauce and pickles on a Martin’s potato roll. To get to the final, Trill had to beat a Houston rival — Burger-chan — in the bracket’s local round.

The flagship at 3607 S. Shepherd Drive, which sits right on the Montrose–Upper Kirby line, is the proof of concept. It opened in June 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. There is a triple-patty version for bigger appetites, and the plant-based line is priced and listed separately — the Vegan OG Burger runs $14.29 and the Vegan Triple OG $16.79 on the Shepherd store’s own ordering menu.

Beyond the burgers, the menu is short:

• Fries, $3.99, the standard side and the right call most days — Trill sauce on the side for an extra $0.50
• Trill Lemonade, $6.25, fresh-squeezed, with a Trill Arnold Palmer at the same price and strawberry and desert-pear versions at $7.00 and $7.50
• Big Pokey Exotic Pop, the bottled house soda named for the late Houston rapper, about $6
• Shakes — chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, in the $6.75 to $6.99 range
• Trill Kids Meal, $8.98, with a vegan version at $11.98

It is not a sprawling menu, and that is the point. Trill does a few things and finishes them. Prices are the Shepherd location’s and can differ by store. If you want a roundup of the wider Houston burger field, Chris Shepherd’s Houston burger rundown is a useful companion read.

Locations: S. Shepherd, Spring, Missouri City, and NRG Stadium

Trill Burgers now runs three restaurants plus a stadium presence. The flagship is at 3607 S. Shepherd Drive (77098), open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to midnight Friday through Sunday — the same posted hours the brand lists at all three stores. Online ordering opens earlier, at 10:30 a.m.

A second location opened on Louetta Road in Spring in April 2025, in a remodeled former Dairy Queen, serving the north Harris County side of town. A third opened in Missouri City on December 10, 2025, at 20220 Fort Bend Parkway, Suite 140, and drew a line out the door on day one. 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, 520 and 548, a partnership that launched for the 2023 season; the brand is also available to order in the stadium’s luxury suites. The stand at 135 is self-checkout, and 548 uses Zippin’s AI-powered checkout to move the line. For background on the expansion timeline, see our reporting on the Trill Burgers Houston expansion.

What it is actually like to visit

The Shepherd 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. Weekend lines are real, especially at lunch and after late-night events — plan around them or use the drive-thru 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 Upper Kirby side of Shepherd 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 — the rival Trill beat on its way to the GMA title — built its reputation on a tight, refined patty in Greenway Plaza’s underground food court, lost that space at the end of 2020, and came back as “Burger-chan 2.0” at 5353 W. Alabama St. near the Galleria, adding a Heights room at 506 Yale St. in May 2026. Stanton’s City Bites, at 1420 Edwards St. off Washington Avenue, 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 is a repeat RodeoHouston vendor, 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

• S. Shepherd (flagship): 3607 S. Shepherd Drive, Houston, TX 77098 — drive-thru and dine-in
• Spring: 6810 Louetta Road, Spring, TX 77379 — opened April 2025
• Missouri City: 20220 Fort Bend Parkway, Suite 140, Missouri City, TX 77459 — opened December 2025
• NRG Stadium: concession stands at sections 115, 135, 520 and 548 (Texans gamedays)
• Hours at all three restaurants: 11 a.m.–9 p.m. Monday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–midnight Friday–Sunday
• Phone (S. Shepherd): (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 on 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.