dining restaurant fast food headquarters decatur georgia products food service owner sentinel capital partners website www.huddlehouse.com huddle house is an american chain of 24 hour diner style restaurants with over 390 locations in 21 states primarily found in the southern united states . the chain was started in 1964 in decatur georgia by john sparks with the goal of providing a 24 hour eatery . it is named after the act of huddling in football . the original huddle house in decatur was established to give fans a place to eat after the big game on friday nights . its competitors include waffle house ihop cracker barrel denny s and bob evans . contents 1 history 2 see also 3 references 4 external links history edit huddle house opened their first 24 hour restaurant in april 1964 in decatur georgia . in 1966 they began actively franchising . the company now expands primarily through franchising but also continues to operate company units . the combined organization has continued to expand and today encompasses more than 400 units throughout the traditional south and new development areas opening in the mid atlantic mid west and the southwestern united states . in 2001 huddle house was awarded the hot again award by nation s restaurant news as the 1 revitalized brand in america . in 2006 huddle house was acquired by allied capital . 1 in 2009 ares capital acquired allied capital . 2 in 2012 ares sold huddle house to sentinel capital partners . 3 the company signed a lease agreement with pilot flying j in late 2011 to operate huddle house locations within several pilot flying j locations . 4 in addition to opening locations in huddle house s traditional footprint in kansas and oklahoma the deal also included huddle house s first location in fargo north dakota its northernmost reach to date . 5 in addition to kansas and oklahoma huddle house has locations in alabama arkansas florida georgia illinois indiana kentucky louisiana mississippi missouri north carolina ohio pennsylvania south carolina tennessee texas virginia and west virginia . 6 see also edit list of pancake houses references edit allied capital puts 124m into huddle house buyout ares capital buys allied in consolidation push shrinking huddle house sold to private equity firm appreciative kin . any meal . any time . breakfast lunch dinner . huddle house . retrieved 2015 08 25 . 1 archived june 21 2012 at the wayback machine . find a restaurant search by state city or zip code . huddle house . retrieved 2015 08 25 . external links edit official website this us based restaurant or restaurant chain article is a stub . you can help wikipedia by expanding it . v t e retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title huddle house & oldid 743264066 categories companies based in atlantarestaurants in georgia u.s. state economy of the midwestern united stateseconomy of the southeastern united statesregional restaurant chains in the united statesfast food chains of the united statesrestaurants established in 1964pancake housesprivately held companies of the united statesunited states restaurant stubshidden categories articles with wayback machine linksall stub articles navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages add links this page was last modified on 8 october 2016 at 21 39 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view