Ranked by entry cost

Item 7 is the franchisor’s estimate of the initial investment needed to establish one outlet. It is a range assembled by the franchisor, not a bid and not a cap. The total may combine the franchise fee, deposits, construction, equipment, signage, opening inventory, training travel, professional costs and an assumption for additional funds. The FTC’s franchise guide advises buyers to compare those assumptions with their own costs and financing, not merely accept the cover-page total.

This table sorts by the low end because that is the conventional directory view. The high end remains visible because it is usually the more useful stress-test. Range width matters: a narrow estimate and a range spanning several hundred thousand dollars do not offer the same planning certainty.

The totals do not share one scope

A compact counter-service shop, a food-court unit and a 2,000-square-foot dining room can all appear under “restaurant franchise” while requiring very different work. One filing may assume a second-generation restaurant; another may include a shell build. Some bundle fixtures and equipment into a package, while others separate mechanical, electrical and plumbing work from leasehold improvements. A zero-dollar low estimate on one construction line does not mean construction is free; another line or landlord assumption may carry it.

Square footage appears only where the source record states it. It helps explain the spread but still does not normalize the rows. Local labor, code upgrades, utility capacity, landlord contributions and the condition of the selected space remain site-specific. The deeper Buildout Index shows how public Item 7 line items are grouped and why two printed totals can hide different bundles.

The filing year is another scope boundary. These are nominal dollars from the year shown on each row; they are not inflation-adjusted into a common year. Comparing a 2023 construction estimate with a 2026 estimate is not the same as collecting two bids today.

Gaps stay visible

Wienerschnitzel has no Item 7 total in the source files behind this directory, so it is absent here while remaining in rankings supported by other fields. Filling that gap from an undated portal would create false precision.

bluTaco’s record states no initial franchise fee. That is a disclosed feature of that offering, not permission to infer that every missing percentage is zero. The brand remains unranked on the ongoing fee table because the source does not provide the royalty and brand-fund inputs required by that metric.

Use this page to identify differences worth investigating. Before relying on a range, get the current FDD, read every Item 7 line and footnote, confirm the format covered, and build a location-specific budget. Lowest published entry cost is a sorting rule, not a forecast of the final cheque.