Top 10 Restaurant Stocks to Buy Under $20

5. Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO)

Share Price: $12.00

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 22

Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) is a fast-casual restaurant company that serves Chicago Street food in multichannel restaurants. The company reported a total revenue of $184.6 million for fiscal Q4 2024, while full-year revenue was $710.6 million. Restaurant-level adjusted EBITDA for fiscal Q4 2024 was $45.2 million and $168.1 million for the full year, with a margin of 23.7%.

The addition of kiosks at all of the company’s restaurants supported top-line momentum in the quarter, driving a comp lift of more than 1% through the mix. Management is continuing to explore the role of the kiosks in its business.

Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) is also continuing to expand its operations and plans to open 12 new restaurants in 2025. This includes its first restaurant in Georgia, while most of the rest will be in Texas. A majority of the openings will be concentrated in the year’s second half, and its strong pipeline is expected to lead to a more balanced 2026.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris O’Cull maintained a Buy rating on Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) on March 3 and set a price target of $17.00.

White Brook Capital Partners stated the following regarding Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:

“Portillo’s Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLO) is up over 20% so far this year. On January 14, the Company preliminarily announced same store sales growth and gave supportive guidance for 2025 driving much of that stock improvement. But the even more important news should have been picked up during 2024, and was simply overlooked. During the third quarter, they announced they would explore financing the building for their new stores, rather than leasing the ground, but financing the building themselves. The move meant that the company can grow more quickly while also allowing for free cash flow after growth investments to begin to flow to the bottom line. This is exactly the scenario outlined in my bull case write-up last year. We were obviously too early in establishing our position in 2024, but this is the setup that we outlined in our thesis, and one that, as they execute, should prove lucrative.”