Cheap restaurant franchises

A restaurant franchise is one of the most expensive businesses to open, because you pay for a kitchen, a dining room, signs and a lease before you sell anything. The cheapest food franchises avoid most of that: they trade from a kiosk in a mall, a counter in a grocery store, a cart or a small storefront with no seating. This guide ranks food franchises by the low end of their cost to open, counting only brands with at least 20 US locations so that every one has owners you can call.

Cheapest restaurant and food franchises

The cheapest established food franchises to open. Most sell one thing from a small space: sushi made in a supermarket, fruit cups, pretzels, shaved ice or cookies. They suit owner-operators who want a food business without a full kitchen, and several let one owner run many counters.

Cheapest large food franchises

Among food brands with at least 500 US locations, these cost least to open. The cheapest are counters inside grocery and convenience stores; after them come delivery-and-carryout and counter-service brands in leased storefronts, which avoid the cost of building a free-standing restaurant.

Cheapest franchises by kind of food

The typical cost to open varies more by kind of food than by brand. Smoothie and bubble tea brands are cheapest, because the equipment is small and the space can be too. Burger and breakfast restaurants cost the most, since most are free-standing with a drive-thru or a full dining room.

Smaller formats of bigger brands

Several big brands sell a cheaper format alongside their main restaurant: an express counter, a kiosk, a non-traditional location in an airport, campus or travel center, or a mobile unit. These can cut the cost to open by more than half, though the sites are limited and sales are lower.

Cheap food franchises with the best sales for the money

Cost to open is half the story. These food brands, all starting at $500K or less, publish yearly sales per location, ranked by sales divided by the midpoint of the cost to open. A brand that sells several times its opening cost each year has more room to pay rent, staff and royalties and still leave something for the owner.

Average sales where the brand gives one, otherwise its median, for the locations the brand reports. Sales are before costs.

What a cheap food franchise leaves out

Many of the cheapest food concepts are counters inside a host store, where the host takes a share of sales or rent and controls the hours. Carts and trucks depend on events and permits. And the low end of a range is a small site in a cheap market: budget for the middle. Use the payback calculator to see how long a location would take to earn its cost back at your own figures, and the failure rates guide to see which food brands lose owners.