This article has been updated from Nov. 19.

The Habit Restaurants (HABT) opened for trading Thursday with a big first-day gain -- doubling from the IPO pricing level -- making it the latest fast-casual chain to join the market along with recent offerings such as Zoe's Kitchen (ZOES) and El Pollo Loco (LOCO).

Lately, the stock was at $36.11, giving it a whopping 100% bump from the pricing, which occurred Wednesday at $18, and a 20% advance from the $30 opening trade. Habit, an Irvine, Calif.-based company effectively controlled by private equity firm KarpReilly, offered 5 million Class A shares to the public. The pricing was above the anticipated range of $14 to $16 a share, raising proceeds of $90 million before accounting for costs related to the offering.

Considering how Wall Street values other fast-casual companies, including Chipotle (CMG) and Panera (PNRA), and how it will perceive Habit's prospects and highly regarded burgers, we had speculated this week that it probably wouldn't stay near the pricing point for long. Many IPOs meet early buyers, but more importantly for Habit, it operates in the buzzy fast-casual "better burger" segment, an arena that, while still small, is influential and popular thanks to names such as Five Guys, Smashburger and In-N-Out, as well as Shake Shack, another possible burger IPO.

For every fast-casual restaurant that goes public, it's customary for the media to ask if it's "the next Chipotle." Regardless of whether it is or isn't -- and we can't know that for years -- we thought it wouldn't be surprising to see Habit's shares climb potentially to the mid-$20s soon after trading began. That was based on the valuations of seven other fast-casual operators now on the market, where earnings multiples (setting aside some of the more outlandish price-to-earnings ratios) generally average in the high 30s. But we also believed that guess might be conservative given the market's demand for growth stocks, and it turned out to be.

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First-day "pop"

For all practical purposes, everyday investors have no chance to get any stock at an initial pricing (unless it declines, of course). Outside of a few investors who are able to, the pricing essentially serves only as a talking point from which to hype the first-day "pop." The realistic price where most individuals can start buying is higher, sometimes much higher. In the case of Habit, it was $12 a share, or 67%, above the pricing.

However, now the story will start to be about Habit the business, not Habit the IPO. Data from food industry research firm Technomic says that U.S. burger sellers had sales of $72 billion last year, about $2.4 billion, or 3.3%, of that occurring at better burger stores like Habit. Food trends being what they are, Habit is happy to promise a great deal of growth.