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Whataburger to open in East Ridge later this year

Photo by Dave Flessner / The former Wally's restaurant on Ringgold Road near Interstate 75 will be rebuilt to become the site of a Whataburger restaurant later this year. BKW Properties LLC, which bought the property when Wally's closed in 2023, is working with a franchisee for Whataburger to develop the fast-food restaurant. Photo by Dave Flessner / The former Wally's restaurant on Ringgold Road near Interstate 75 will be rebuilt to become the site of a Whataburger restaurant later this year. BKW Properties LLC, which bought the property when Wally's closed in 2023, is working with a franchisee for Whataburger to develop the fast-food restaurant.

By Dave Flessner February 21, 2025 5 min read

Texas-based burger chain Whataburger should open its first location in the Chattanooga market later this year, along Ringgold Road in East Ridge.

The East Ridge Industrial Development Board on Thursday approved a financing plan to help convert the Wally’s restaurant that shut down two years ago at 6521 Ringgold Road into the new fast food eatery.

“We’re very excited to bring Whataburger to East Ridge,” Tyler Prentice of BKW Properties told the city panel.

Prentice, who bought the former restaurant when it closed in March 2023, said he expects to break ground for the new Whataburger within the next couple of months and anticipates working with the Whataburger franchisee MWB Restaurants to open the new restaurant later this year.

East Ridge Mayor Brian Williams said this will be the first Whataburger in Southeast Tennessee, and he hopes it will spur other development in the area.

“I love Whataburgers and have been trying to get them to locate here for some time,” Williams said in an interview after the industrial development board meeting. “I think they will do very well at this location.”

Whataburger, which began in Corpus Christi, Texas 75 years ago, already has 23 restaurants in Tennessee, according to its website. Now headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, the company has more than 1,000 restaurants in 16 states.

The iconic brand was started in 1950 by Harmon Dobson, who said his goal was “to serve a burger so big that it took two hands to hold and so good that after a single bite customers couldn’t help but exclaim, ‘What a burger!'” according to the company’s website. In addition to burgers, breakfast is served during morning hours.

The new Whataburger in East Ridge will be operated by MWB Restaurants, a subsidiary of the Anderson Investment Group, which operates a dozen Whataburger restaurants across East Tennessee and North Alabama. On its website, MWB Restaurants says it is adding new restaurants this year in the Knoxville, Chattanooga and Huntsville market areas.

City of East Ridge / A rendering shows a Whataburger in the space currently holding the shuttered Wally’s restaurant on Ringgold Road in East Ridge.

Aaron Milam, chief operating officer for MWB Restaurants, said the East Ridge site “has a lot of positive things going for it” with easy access to Interstate 75 and other nearby retail and recreation attractions, including Camp Jordan and the Red Wolves soccer stadium.

“Athletics teams love to visit a Whataburger after games,” Milam said in an email statement Friday. “The East Ridge city government has also been fantastic to work with.”

Milam said he anticipates opening other Whataburgers in the local market.

“The Chattanooga area is one we would like to continue to grow in for years to come,” he said.

The new Ringgold Road Whataburger will be open around the clock, except for Christmas, and will employ between 80 and 90 workers.

East Ridge City Attorney Mark Litchford said the total development cost of buying the site and redeveloping it is projected to total nearly $3.8 million. The project will be funded, in part, from a portion of the sales tax collections generated by the new restaurant, which the city and developer can recoup within the special border tax zone established by the Tennessee legislature for East Ridge in 2011.

The Whataburger restaurant is projected to generate at least $4 million in annual sales. Tennessee’s border region district allows municipalities and developers to be reimbursed for costs related to development within a certified border area with a portion of state’s 7% sales tax rate.

The border zone tax district helped East Ridge recruit the Bass Pro Shop to exit 1 on Interstate 75, and over the decade East Ridge has recouped about $25 million in sales tax collections from the state to help fund more than a dozen retail, restaurant and hotel developments, Williams said.

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The city of East Ridge and the developer will be able to get much of the new sales tax collections generated by the new Whataburger restaurant.

“This is a great win for the city and the state,” Litchford told the city’s development board.

Williams said he hopes the popular restaurant chain will encourage more interstate travelers to visit East Ridge.

The East Ridge City Council is scheduled to vote on the border zone agreement Thursday.

The new Whataburger will be built on the site of the Wally’s restaurant that operated for 34 years before owners Glen and Sharon Meadows retired and closed their eatery. BKW Properties LLC bought the property for $2 million, according to Hamilton County property records.

The Wally’s on McCallie Avenue continues to operate.

Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com.

File photo / Photo shows a Whataburger restaurant in San Antonio, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)