White Castle

White Castle is a family-owned restaurant company known for its small, square hamburgers, or sliders, served in compact, high-volume locations. The brand operates a fully company-owned restaurant portfolio alongside a large frozen foods business that sells branded sliders through supermarkets and mass retailers across the United States. As of June 2024, White Castle operates approximately 345 restaurants, with its footprint concentrated in the Midwest, the New York–New Jersey region, Las Vegas, and Central Florida, while its retail products extend the brand’s reach nationwide.

The company was founded in 1921, when Walter Anderson, a cook, and Billy Ingram, an insurance salesman, opened the first White Castle in Wichita, Kansas. They introduced a standardized menu, assembly-line cooking, and distinctive white, castle-like storefronts at a time when hamburgers carried a negative reputation, helping establish what is widely viewed as the first true fast-food chain. By the 1930s, White Castle had grown across multiple states and set many of the operating practices later adopted by larger national competitors.

Over the decades, White Castle moved its headquarters to Columbus, Ohio, and continued to build around its core slider while broadening the menu to include cheese sliders, breakfast items, chicken and fish sliders, and rotating limited-time offerings. The company also developed dedicated manufacturing facilities to produce frozen sliders for grocery and club channels, creating a second major business line. This combination of restaurants and retail products has kept the brand visible even in markets where it operates few or no physical locations.

During the last five years, White Castle has added a selective but meaningful expansion program to its legacy markets. The company has focused on infill growth and site upgrades in core Midwestern metros such as Columbus, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Minneapolis, while also reworking some older locations through redevelopment. At the same time, it has pushed into high-profile destination markets. In 2021, White Castle opened a large-format flagship restaurant in Orlando, described as its largest location, and has since followed with additional units in Central Florida, including Kissimmee, to create a regional cluster that benefits from tourism and strong brand recognition. The brand has taken a similar clustering approach in Las Vegas, where newer restaurants tap into both local traffic and visitor demand.

White Castle remains privately held under White Castle System, Inc., led by third- and fourth-generation members of the Ingram family. The company employs thousands of people across its restaurants, manufacturing plants, and corporate offices. Because the chain does not franchise, it maintains direct control over its real estate decisions, operations, and brand standards.

For landlords, brokers, and developers, White Castle represents a long-tenured, recognizable tenant with a consistent quick-service model that has adapted to car-oriented trade areas and dense urban corridors. The chain typically operates in freestanding or endcap formats that can anchor small pads, support drive-thru traffic patterns, and contribute steady, often late-night visits. Its measured, company-led growth in priority markets such as Central Florida, Las Vegas, and established Midwest and New York–New Jersey corridors reflects a deliberate posture: adding high-visibility units, reinforcing existing clusters, and reinvesting in legacy sites to keep the brand relevant in both new developments and redevelopment projects.