Killer Burger Is Coming to Northeast Austin: What the City Permits Reveal About the East Village Opening

Killer Burger's first Austin, Texas location is not open yet — but city permit filings show it's close. The Portland-founded chain's East Village restaurant, at 3500 E Parmer Lane in the East Parmer tech corridor, pulled its final construction permit five days ago, just weeks after its own stated "July 2026" target quietly slipped.

Where Is Killer Burger's Austin Location Going?

The restaurant is taking a 2,938-square-foot space — suite 12130/12135 — inside EastVillage, a 425-acre mixed-use development on East Parmer Lane in far Northeast Austin's tech corridor, according to Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) filings. The site sits across from Samsung's Austin semiconductor plant and within a few minutes of Dell, National Instruments, GM's Austin campus, the Home Depot Technology Center and an Amazon facility — a lunch-crowd bet on the daytime population of one of the city's biggest office corridors, not on downtown or South Congress foot traffic.

When Will It Actually Open?

Here's the timeline the permits actually show, reconstructed from Austin's building-permit database and TDLR's public project registry:

The mechanical permit — usually among the last major sign-offs before a restaurant can schedule its health inspection — was issued five days ago, three weeks after the TDLR-registered July 1 target. That's not unusual for restaurant buildouts, but it does mean "later this summer," the phrase Killer Burger used in its own May press release, is the more realistic frame than "any day now."

Who's Actually Behind It?

This isn't a random franchise group testing the market. TDLR's filing lists the tenant of record as Thomas "TJ" Southard — the same person who founded Killer Burger in Portland, Oregon, in 2010 and who, per the company's own May 2026 announcement, personally operates Killer Burger's two existing San Antonio locations as a multi-unit franchisee. Southard is opening his own company's first Austin restaurant himself.

Killer Burger's Texas run so far: two San Antonio locations under Southard in 2025, a Houston location (Sawyer Heights) that opened this past May under a separate multi-unit franchise group, and now Austin — the fourth Texas location and, per the company, part of "two additional openings planned in Austin, TX, later this summer."

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"Texas has been an incredible growth market for us, and the response we've seen so far has given us a lot of confidence as we expand into new cities like Houston," said Killer Burger CEO Adam Sanders in the company's May 2026 announcement of its Houston opening.

What's Actually at EastVillage?

EastVillage is the developer's name for the retail/office/residential complex itself — which is why Killer Burger's own location listing calls it "Austin, East Village" rather than naming an existing neighborhood. The complex already holds a First Watch (breakfast-and-lunch chain) a few doors down in the same building cluster, with more retail and restaurant space still leasing up, according to the property's own marketing materials. It's a useful signal for where fast-casual chains are actually placing bets in Austin right now: not the urban core, but the office-dense northeast corridor along Parmer Lane, where thousands of tech employees eat lunch on a clock.

What Locals Should Know

• It's not open. Every source as of this morning — the company's own site, its location page, its Instagram-tied giveaway rules — still frames Austin, East Village as upcoming, not live.
• No confirmed opening date yet. The company's public language has moved from "July 2026" to "later this summer" as the permit timeline slipped past its original TDLR target.
• A second Austin location is coming too, per Killer Burger's own announcement, though no address for it has shown up in city permit records yet — ATX Things will keep watching the filings.
• It's a lunch-corridor bet, not a nightlife one. Between the Samsung plant, Dell, National Instruments and Amazon nearby, this is a daytime-traffic play more than a weekend destination.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Killer Burger open in Austin yet? No. As of today, the company's own website still lists its East Village location as "coming soon," and Austin's mechanical (HVAC) permit — typically one of the last trades finished before a health inspection — was only issued five days ago.

Where exactly is the Austin location? 3500 E Parmer Lane, Suite 12130/12135, inside the EastVillage development in far Northeast Austin, across from Samsung's semiconductor plant.

Who owns the Austin Killer Burger? TDLR filings list Killer Burger founder Thomas "TJ" Southard as the tenant of record — the same operator behind the chain's two San Antonio locations.

Is this Killer Burger's first Texas location? No — it's the fourth. Southard opened two San Antonio locations in 2025, and a Houston location opened in May 2026 under a separate franchise group.

Will there be another Killer Burger in Austin? Killer Burger's own May 2026 announcement says two Austin openings are planned for "later this summer." Only one address — East Village — has surfaced in city permit records so far.

For more on what's actually getting built across Austin right now, see ATX Things' July Development Report, which tracks the metro's construction activity by the numbers, and the Anderson Square project reshaping another stretch of North Austin. For another recent fast-casual arrival in a similar big-box retail setting, see Baldinucci Pizza Romana at Domain NORTHSIDE. Browse more of what's actually opening across the city at ATX Things' best restaurants in Austin tracker.