Wells Cattle Company

Back-porch burgers, served like family

Think about the best burger you’ve ever had. Chances are it wasn’t at a fast-food restaurant. It was probably on someone’s back porch on a warm evening, with the grill still smoking, a cold glass of tea on the table, and nobody in any hurry to be anywhere else.

That’s exactly the feeling Lee Wells set out to capture when he opened Wells Cattle Company in a 1930s house in downtown Rockwall.

Despite the name, Wells Cattle Company in Rockwall isn’t a steakhouse, as some folks presume. It’s a hometown burger restaurant, and today it has a second location, Wells Burgers Express in Royse City. That makes two locations, one family, and one simple idea about how people should be treated and served.

“We want the experience to be memorable,” he says. “We want to contribute to customers’ lives beyond just serving food and slipping a bill on their table. We want all our customers to feel like they’re part of our family.”

Recognized by Neighbors

His approach has clearly worked. Living Magazine readers have voted Wells Cattle Company the area’s Best Burger for eight years running from 2019 through 2026.

For Lee, it’s a sign that customers really do feel like part of the Wells family.

Roots in the Ranch

The restaurant’s name comes from a real place. Lee grew up working cattle, and the Wells family founded their ranch in 1987. In 2017, they began selling beef directly to customers, and on Labor Day 2018, Lee opened the restaurant on North Fannin Street.

Long before the first customers walked through his new restaurant’s door, Lee had become convinced that what families eat matters and that good meals start with clean, honest ingredients. “We want to serve our customers the cleanest food possible,” he says.

That conviction shows up in every burger. All the beef Wells Cattle Company serves comes from the Wells family ranch, and all the cattle are raised on open pastures without growth hormones. Instead of using leftover trimmings, they grind every cut, including ribeye, loin, and brisket. They then dry-age the beef for seven days and hand-pat it fresh each morning.

A Self-Taught Cook

Lee has no formal culinary training, but he has years of experience preparing and experimenting with food. As a boy, he’d come home from school, bake a potato, and doctor it with the various spices he found in his mother’s pantry. Some combinations worked. Some didn’t. Either way, he learned something.

That curiosity never went away. After the Rockwall restaurant opened, Lee sat on his couch one evening and started dreaming up new ways to serve a burger, asking the same question he’d asked as a kid in front of that pantry: what would happen if I tried this?

A Menu Without Ego

The answers are now on the menu, and a few of them stop first-time guests in their tracks.

Alongside the classic Wells Burger, you’ll find a PB&J Bacon Burger, a Brunch Burger served on a waffle, a PB&J hot dog, and more than a dozen other choices you won’t see at a typical hamburger stop. Peanut butter and jelly on a burger or hot dog may sound strange to some, but Lee quickly points out that the PB&J creations are big hits.

He admits not every burger idea makes the cut, and he is fine with that. If one of his creations catches on, it stays. If it doesn’t, something else takes its place.

Lee doesn’t let his ego stand in the way. “If one of my burger ideas doesn’t sell, I can always take it off and try something else. I’ve never been afraid to try.”

The menu also offers plenty of comfort, from hand-cut, beef-tallow-cooked fries to peach cobbler and house-made meringue pie, plus ice cream from nearby Fate Creamery. Guests watching carbs or avoiding gluten will find options made just for them.

Room to Slow Down

At many restaurants, a meal can feel like a race to turn the table. Wells Cattle Company was designed to work the other way. Lee wanted a place where customers could settle in for a while, like being on their own back porch with friends.

In fact, the restaurant has one. When the old house first opened, it seated about 40 people. Nine months later, the team added a large deck out back, doubling the seating. It’s the kind of place where families linger after the last bite, and a quick lunch or dinner can turn into a long conversation or a friendly card game.

To encourage conversation and lingering, there are no blaring TVs on the walls, just recorded country classics playing in the background.

Where the Culture Comes From

Before he ever opened a restaurant, Lee pastored in the area for many years, and he’s convinced that’s where the heart of his restaurant’s culture comes from.

The principle he leaned on as a pastor is one most of us learned as children: treat other people the way you want to be treated. It’s in how the staff welcomes a family through the door, the patience they show a guest who can’t decide between the Wells Burger and something more adventurous, and the care that goes into every plate coming out of the kitchen.

Call it the Golden Rule, served with a side of fries.

Two Porches, One Family

Today, guests can find that same welcome in two places. The original Wells Cattle Company still serves Rockwall from North Fannin Street. Wells Burgers Express, which opened in Royse City in fall 2025, offers a smaller, quicker menu of hand-spun shakes, smash burgers made with the same whole-ground beef, a Wells BLT, and more.

No matter which door you walk through, Rockwall or Royse City, Lee hopes you’ll leave feeling the way you do after a good evening at a friend’s house: full, happy, and already looking forward to the next visit.

“Our approach is really pretty simple,” he says. “We want to treat our customers the same way that my family and I would like to be treated. If we can do that, they’ll come back.”