The love affair with restaurants continues.
Fast casual chicken restaurant Wingstop priced 5.8 million shares at $19 in its initial public offering (IPO), a significant rise over the initial price talk of $12 to $14, which was then raised to $16 to $18. It's only the latest in a long string of IPO successes for restaurants, mostly in the fast casual space.
Since 2014, restaurant IPOs have been on a tear (source: IPO ETF Manager Renaissance Capital):
- Shake Shack: up 264 percent
- Zoe's Kitchen: up 156 percent
- Dave & Buster's: up 116 percent
- Papa Murphy's: 58 percent
- El Pollo Loco: up 37 percent
- Bojangles: up 31 percent
One important point: Much of the gains noted above occurred on the first day of trading, so the initial "pop" is very important.
The CEO of Bojangles, Clifton Rutledge, will be on CNBC's "Closing Bell" today.
Read More Bojangles' marks first earnings report with a beat
Next week will be a big one for the IPO market, with yet another restaurant IPO and the long-awaited debut of Fitbit.
IPOs coming next week include:
- Fitbit: health and fitness devices
- MINDBODY: wellness ecommerce platform
- Fogo de Chao: Brazilian steakhouse
- Univar: chemical distributor