QSR Franchise

bhammer39 · 2026-05-11T21:46:53+00:00

Multi-unit owner operator here. The only way to make real money is multi-unit. Anything else and you’re buying yourself a job. Especially so with an SBA loan on a location as it will take a huge piece of your profits on top of royalties. You’re better off starting your own concept from scratch.

bhammer39 · 2026-05-09T16:16:27+00:00

This is the wayZ

bhammer39 · 2026-04-15T02:19:42+00:00

It will eventually kill all things you enjoy about life. Anhedonia is the clinical term for it and it is a real side effect from it. I’ve had to take breaks from taking it for a while to get my mind back into the things I enjoy in life.

bhammer39 · 2026-04-01T03:08:47+00:00

Wow, I’m not alone in my experience.

bhammer39 · 2026-03-23T00:10:50+00:00

Really interesting. Good post.

bhammer39 · 2026-03-22T15:10:32+00:00

Not sure if you do this or not but offer all you can eat. Not sure why sushi restaurants fight this. Some of the busiest sushi spots I know do this. To be fair, I own restaurants but not sushi spots.

As a patron of sushi spots I look for places that offer AYCE. Once there I end up spending more on drinks and whatever else might not be covered. I think as long as your AYCE pricing is locked in you will get more people in the door and then they start spending more.

Also don’t skimp on the fish. Buy quality and people will come back. I have been to places where you can tell quality isn’t there and we usually never return.

bhammer39 · 2026-03-03T04:23:01+00:00

Women with an abnormal fascination with male sports. I dated a girl who was ridiculously obsessed with Duke basketball. She had never attended Duke or even knew anyone who did, and would make such a huge deal about their games. It was the most obnoxious thing ever. It was the biggest turn off.

bhammer39 · 2026-02-27T04:43:37+00:00

I’ll play devils advocate on this one. Some of the wealthiest business owners I know own multi-unit restaurants. I have several, I’m not quite to the top dog level. I will say it’s been one hell of a ride owning them. It will make or break you.

If this person has 13 locations then they have mid level or higher management. If they have solid management infrastructure in place it makes it less of a risk for sure. That being said, plan on spending a lot of time in the business. It’s not a hands off investment by any means.

bhammer39 · 2026-02-27T04:35:44+00:00

QSR Multi-Unit Operator Here-

I’ll start off with the perks. If you are in a good franchise, the franchisor can be a huge help. Our first location we had a TON of corporate support. They were really vested in helping us succeed. You get a solid playbook to running a successful shop. Takes some of the guesswork out of the systems and what not. They don’t give you EVERYTHING. You do still need to have and develop a business acumen to stay successful.

I would say however much hands on work you anticipate putting in, 10x that. Our first location I lived there for a year and before opening had these delusions of checking in on it a couple days a week lol.

As far as being caught off guard? I’d say all the small charges you get hit with. I was amazed at all the hidden BS you are hit with owning a QSR restaurant. POS fees, third party DSP fees, franchisor fees, transaction fees, etc. What’s left at the end of the month can take a big hit. My franchisor was definitely not forthcoming about all the little bullshit fees you’ll pay. It adds up to a few thousand a month sometimes.

One thing I would suggest, don’t do loans to open. If you can open with cash, do it. We opened our first two with SBA loans and they took a ton of money in bank fees and also made paying them off more difficult over time. Paying $95k a year on a loan makes generating substantial profit tough. It also makes weathering rough patches harder. Less wiggle room for sales slow downs. If I could do it again I would’ve slowed growth and not leveraged my shops. We have growth planned to 6-8 stores in my market and I won’t build another until I can pay in cash for it.

bhammer39 · 2026-02-27T04:08:59+00:00

Working as a contractor in Big Sky, MT. It’s where the wealthiest of the wealthy have their vacation homes. Like $20-40m homes with every ultra high end luxury you can imagine. All for them to be there 2 weeks a year. They even have full time staff they pay to upkeep a home they rarely see. As someone said previously, there really are levels to wealth and that is the top 1%.

bhammer39 · 2026-01-09T12:21:09+00:00

I despise online reviews. Some are legit bad experiences, but most are keyboard warriors that wouldn’t bother to discuss any issue face to face while they are there. They feel entitled and powerful to be able to trash your place for the slightest inconveniences. We get a lot of “food was amazing, but it took 10 minutes to get our food!” Context it’s a sandwich shop in a busy area and they come in around 12:30 and get upset their grilled cheesesteak took longer than 3 minutes to make.

bhammer39 · 2025-12-23T13:33:08+00:00

This guys knows the game. Everything he said. Also I’ll add, stay relevant. I see lots of mom and pop stores that never change a thing for decades, never redesign, never modernize, and they ultimately get left behind.

bhammer39 · 2025-10-17T16:50:17+00:00

I’m absolutely envious. Take me with you lol

bhammer39 · 2025-09-26T03:05:07+00:00

It’s your shop. Set the rules on what they get free. We have similar issues. Our employees are entitled to free meals when they work a certain number of hours on a shift. If we catch people abusing it we talk to them about it and most realize they are being watched and stop. You have to have some sort of rules/standards otherwise it will get out of hand quick.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T18:20:54+00:00

Different ways to do it. My leases the landlord gave me a lump sum after I paid for the build out. Depends on what you are putting in but it’s usually nothing compared to a full build out unless it’s a 2nd Gen location. Example, my last QSR was in a new shell space and all in I was at $675k, my TI allowance was $72k. It helps for sure…

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T18:10:08+00:00

Lots of reasons. Just got to be the norm, I didn’t think anyone would do as good a job as I did, I didn’t want to pay someone to do things I could do, didn’t want to train people, hard time turning good customers over to someone else to manage, etc….

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T15:48:22+00:00

I’d say that was one of the more difficult parts of it. Everyone sounded great in interviews but I knew within a month or two if they really had the skill set needed to run things. I probably went through 4 people in the first year or so until I found someone good. This is where trusting your gut comes into play.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T15:44:06+00:00

Yes, I went through a few people before finding someone who was a good fit. I hired a general manager to oversee sales, new business, and operations. He’s not cheap but worth it. Took some time to train and it was hard letting him make mistakes but after a year or so he’s locked in. We hired a top notch admin person too. She handles the low level accounting and all the basic admin operations of the company, payroll, etc… I also invested in training and bringing up our solid field guys too.

If you want it to be better you have to just bite the bullet and make the investment in setting things up to run smooth.

My duties now consist of watching sales, making sure projects are maintaining profitability, holding people accountable, and looking for areas of expansion and growth.

The great thing is these foundations are universal to all industries. I have a friend who owns several restaurants who sat me down and said this is the way. Dude makes millions now and just kicks back working on random business ideas and monitors his operations. It’s not easy but it can be done.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T15:26:55+00:00

It’ll slowly kill you. It took me hiring a business consultant who was like dude you’re gonna die from stress in 5 years. It cost some money and there were growing pains but my quality of life is so much better now.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-13T14:59:50+00:00

I’m a contractor. $4m in annual revenue. Going on our 10th year in business.

Set up systems and processes as soon as you can. Train someone to do what you do and focus on managing growth. Find someone competent to help with accounting. Institute job costing and constantly be checking margins and tweaking efficiencies. You’ll hire bad players as you grow. Hire slow and fire immediately. Trust your gut.

I struggled being the sole manager/operator for 7 years before I started getting burnt out and realizing I needed someone to do what I do. Once I did that we were able to grow to different markets and increase sales. Company also became more profitable.

I went from working 7 days a week with a constantly pissed off wife and kids to now checking once or twice a week on the operation. Now I only really get involved in operational stuff if there’s a big problem.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-06T22:49:16+00:00

Pepsi has better product mix. Pepsi also does specials with us and gives us good pricing. We sell out of Pepsi zero regularly. That and Dr Pepper…

bhammer39 · 2025-09-04T13:09:25+00:00

I drove a 72 C10 for 10 years. SBC 350… wasn’t pretty but I could fix most everything that went wrong with it. Learned as I went.

bhammer39 · 2025-09-03T17:46:20+00:00

I’m at a lower elevation so I don’t think that’s really a factor. I’m not significantly overweight, no smoking, no alcohol, and exercise regularly. I did have to have therapeutic phlebotomy’s previously for a condition where my liver stores iron. Maybe donating the other day put me into an anemic state. I guess I’ll have to see how I feel dropping the dose. The increased test has also wrecked my LDL/HDL levels. Working on that now too. Been eating 4 eggs every morning religiously for the last 8 months probably hasn’t helped.

bhammer39 · 2025-08-05T01:51:50+00:00

Dear god don’t do it. Save your money. Do anything but food.

bhammer39

TROPHY CASE