Investors sent shares up 50 cents to $17.50, a decent feat given that the Dow Jones industrials tumbled 77 points to 11,128, creating a 292-point loss over two days.

"It should be deemed a success," says Richard Peterson, analyst at Thomson Financial.

HOW DOES BK STOCK STACK UP?: It wasn't a whopper

Burger King is just the latest in a string of restaurants sating investors' appetites. Chipotle (CMG), McDonald's Mexican spinoff, has rocketed 185% from its IPO price set late January, and seafood restaurant McCormick & Schmick's (MSSR) has gained 93% from its July 2004 IPO.

But with Burger King, some are wondering, Where's the beef? Some of the criticisms:

•Private investor payouts. Nearly all the proceeds from the IPO are being used to pay off the private-equity firms that bought Burger King from Diageo in 2002 and have profited handsomely on the deal. In February, the company borrowed $350 million to help pay the firms a $367 million dividend.

Investors, though, weren't overly concerned with the payout because the company is in better health now thanks to restructuring efforts by the firms, Texas Pacific, Bain Capital and Goldman Sachs, says Sam Snyder, research analyst at Renaissance Capital. And together, the firms still own about 75% of Burger King, so there's still an incentive to keep it healthy, he says.

Burger King CEO John Chidsey defends the payouts. Private-equity firms "spent four years helping us turn around the company. The dividend was reasonable," he says.

•Slowing sales growth. Comparable sales, sales at restaurants open at least 13 months, grew just 2% in the nine months ended March 31, well below the 5.6% growth in fiscal 2005, says John Owens, restaurant stock analyst at Morningstar.

Investors are looking past this, though, since the company has had eight-consecutive quarters of comparable sales growth, he says.

•Executive turnover. Not long before the IPO, on April 7, Chidsey replaced Greg Brenneman as CEO. Chidsey says the changes did not hurt the company's turnaround plan. "That wasn't an issue with investors. The team that wrote the turnaround plan has been in place for 3½ years."

Investors are hopeful because there's still room for the chain to improve. Burger King has "already baked in progress they've made so far," Snyder says. "But there's still substantial ground to be made up with their restaurants."

Contributing: Bruce Horovitz