RESTAURANT FINANCE

My Updated View of Restaurant Real Estate

Participants in the restaurant industry have always faced the dilemma of whether to own or lease real estate. Financial buyers prefer leasing real estate, because they don’t want to tie up capital. Owner/operators trend…

A New Type of Marriage: Restaurants and Retail

It’s not uncommon for restaurants to have a retail component. Normally these retail endeavors offer products related to the restaurant, such as sauces or frozen pizzas, or items leveraging the restaurant’s name. A more…

ESOPs and Restaurant Businesses

While many businesses have taken advantage of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) for employee incentives and buyouts, there are very few to be implemented in the restaurant industry. They have been deemed difficult to…

Protect Your Businesses

One of the concerns that businesses and individuals have is the issue of personal liability. It is really key, if we’re looking at downturns in the economy and other ways the restaurant industry may…

Choosing the Right Second, Third or Even Fourth Concept

The Monitor’s annual Top 200 franchisee ranking makes it clear that most of the larger multi-unit operators in the ranking operate multiple concepts. This has been a trend for the past 15 years. It’s…

When Is the Right Time to Sell Your Franchise Company?

Last month I discussed the opportune time to sell a multi-unit, non-franchised restaurant company. I’d like to continue that discussion and look at the sale of a franchise company. Behind every great franchise business…

When to Sell Your Concept

A question I am often asked is “when is the best time to sell my restaurant concept/business?” In approaching this question, it is important to separate concept value from franchise value (though in many…

What To Know When Acquiring Multi-Unit Real Estate Sites

As we all know, franchise restaurant companies are dynamic and constantly selling and acquiring multi-unit real estate sites, sometimes in fairly significant numbers. I’d like to highlight the key points related to the acquisition…

Reinventing your Restaurant Concept

Restaurant concepts, be they single-units, multi-units or chains, must evolve or, more extremely, “re-concept.” There are many examples of restaurants that have tried to reposition themselves by reinventing their concept to attract new or…

CATEGORIES