QSR Landscape

Quick-service franchise brands, ranked by what they cost to run.

Döner Haus franchise

Döner Haus: $359,500–$586,000 total investment, $35,000 franchise fee, 5% total ongoing fee. Read out of the filings.

Compiled from public filings and operator sites

5% Total ongoing fee
$359,500–$586,000 Total investment
6 Open shops, 2026
7+ In construction
55 Franchise commitments, 2026
2023 Founded
2024 Franchising since
FL Miami Beach
850–1,200 Typical size, sq ft
Yes Item 19

Standing-service imbiss of 850–1,200 square feet. Six shops open in three years, seven or more in construction, 55 franchise commitments as of August 2026. A $10,000 initial training fee, covering two people, is charged on top of the franchise fee. Required local advertising is a flat $2,000 a month the operator spends in its own market, so it sits outside the percentage stack.

Fees

Initial franchise fee $35,000
Royalty 3%
Brand fund 2%
Local advertising $2,000 a month, subject to a 10% annual increase
Total ongoing 5% of gross sales
Grand opening $5,000–$10,000
Transfer fee 75% of the then-current initial franchise fee
Renewal fee $5,000

Opening one

Total investment $359,500–$586,000
Typical size 850–1,200 sq ft
Training 24 hours classroom, 56 on the job
Territory Limited protection, not exclusive; about 50,000 population, or a one-mile radius where fewer than that live and work within it
Initial term 10 years
Renewal One ten-year successor term

The system

Format German döner imbiss
Headquarters Miami Beach, FL
Founded 2023
Franchising since 2024
Open shops 6, as of 2026. Six shops open in three years from a 2023 founding: East Village, Astoria, Hell's Kitchen, Bayside, Sunnyside and Central LA, all still open. Seven or more already in construction (Wantagh, Garden City Park, White Plains, West Palm Beach, Oxford, plus Connecticut and Riverside). The company states 55 franchise commitments as of August 2026.
In construction 7+
Franchise commitments 55, as of 2026. Company figure; not Item 20.
Item 20 4 as of 2025, of which 1 franchised and 3 company-owned. Filing snapshot, not tonight's locator.
Item 19 Yes. Covers corporate stores and early franchised units — shops the company still operates.

The franchisor's own accounts

Audited entity Döner Haus Franchising, LLC
Fiscal year end 31 December
Auditor's opinion Unmodified
Auditor Metwally CPA PLLC, Flower Mound, Texas
Members' equity at 31 December 2025 $96,723
Net income for each fiscal year in the statements attached to FDD issued 7 April 2026. A figure in parentheses is a loss, which is how the statements themselves print it.
FY2024 ($38,929) — period from 26 June 2024 to 31 December 2024
FY2025 ($84,773)
Total over 2 years ($123,702)

An unmodified opinion on a two-period history, the first of which is a stub from the franchisor's formation on 26 June 2024. Both periods are losses, together $123,702, and members' equity fell from $147,650 to $96,723 — the profile of a franchisor that has not yet reached the unit count its overhead assumes, and small enough in absolute terms to be funded out of the original contribution. The 2024 filing carried the same auditor from a Bedford, Texas address.

A compact German-döner system

Founded in 2023, franchising since 2024. Six shops open in three years — East Village, Astoria, Hell’s Kitchen, Bayside, Sunnyside and Central LA — none closed. Seven or more are in construction. The company states 55 franchise commitments as of August 2026. GDK, the other German-döner filing in this directory, is closing US shops.

The franchisor is in Miami Beach; the shops are in New York and Los Angeles. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document records an 850-to-1,200-square-foot standing-service imbiss: compact urban stores, kiosk ordering, walk-in traffic. That footprint is the compact end of the sized brands, and it is the format the ranked investment figures describe. The official location and franchise page is the company’s own description of the shops.

The food is the Berlin sandwich: toasted pide, cabbage, garlic.

A Döner Haus storefront with its serving window onto the street
A street-facing service window and shallow frontage: the compact imbiss the 2026 filing describes.

Six shops in three years. Seven-plus going up. Fifty-five commitments. GDK, by contrast, operates no US company shops, sells a five-outlet minimum, has already closed US restaurants, and withdrew its Item 19 in the 2025 filing.

Fee stack and Item 7

The 2026 row records a $35,000 initial franchise fee, a 3% royalty and a 2% brand fund, for a 5% comparable stack, the lowest ongoing-fee stack among the German-döner filings. Required local advertising is a flat $2,000 a month the operator spends in its own market, subject to a 10% annual increase, so it sits outside the percentage stack — most of this directory already charges 1–2% local inside the stack. A $10,000 initial training fee covering two people is charged on top of the franchise fee. Item 7 is $359,500–$586,000, itemised across eighteen rows, including construction and leasehold improvements at $131,000–$266,000, equipment at $78,000–$85,000, and three months of additional funds at $20,000–$35,000. Those figures are nominal 2026 dollars from the issued document. They describe the compact imbiss, not a 1,200-to-1,400-square-foot restaurant and not a five-outlet development schedule.

Item 19 and Item 20

The 2026 row records an Item 19 covering corporate stores and early franchised units — stores the company still operates, not only a distant franchisee average. Item 20 in this row is the four-outlet snapshot as of 2025. Six shops are open now, seven or more are in construction, and the company states 55 franchise commitments. GDK has closed shops that its own filing named as openings.

Development map

The company states 55 franchise commitments as of August 2026. That is a company pipeline figure, not Item 20. Seven or more shops are already in construction: Wantagh, Garden City Park, White Plains, West Palm Beach and Oxford have signed addresses, with contracted work also in Connecticut and Riverside. An April 2026 deck slide listed 46 signed multi-unit deals by market — West Palm Beach (3), Long Island (10), Westchester (3), Los Angeles (20), New Jersey (3), Oxford (1), Riverside (3) and Connecticut (3) — which is the earlier public breakdown, not a second count of tonight’s shops.

US map with six contracted states filled gold beside a key of unit counts by market
Döner Haus development artwork: contracted markets, keyed by unit counts. Distinct from the Item 20 year-end snapshot.

GDK’s consumer locator and Doner Shack’s franchise site are the same kind of company page: dated operator evidence, not a substitute for a filing’s year-end table. GDK’s 2021 filing talked about 66 stores in development and a fifteen-store Houston agreement; Item 20 of the 2025 filing still put US franchised outlets at seven at the end of 2024. A development plan is a plan. As of 2026 Doner Shack is not selling US franchises.

Product and format

The public menu presents pide sandwiches, dürüm wraps and boxes over fries, salad or rice, with chicken, beef or mixed meat. That is the Döner Haus board: Berlin-style sandwich in toasted pide, plus the wrap and the box.

A Döner Haus sandwich, wrap, boxes and fries
Pocket bread, wraps and boxes from one production line.

Döner Haus is a standing-service imbiss. German Doner Kebab’s restaurant-and-minimum package, a New York platter cart, and a 323-unit drive-through are different formats. Item 11 discloses 24 classroom hours and 56 on the job, matched to a compact counter. Item 17 is a ten-year term with one ten-year successor term. The Döner Haus versus GDK compare keeps those two filings from collapsing into one.

The take

Compact German döner, 850–1,200 square feet. Six shops open, none closed, seven or more in construction, 55 franchise commitments. Item 7 is $359,500–$586,000. Stack is 5% — 3% royalty, 2% brand fund — with local advertising at a flat $2,000 a month the operator spends in its own market. Franchise fee $35,000, plus a $10,000 initial training fee. Item 19 covers stores the company still operates. Training is 24 classroom hours and 56 on the job. Term is ten years with one ten-year successor term, a $5,000 renewal fee and a transfer fee of 75% of the then-current initial franchise fee. GDK’s five-outlet minimum, 11% stack, 1,200–1,400-square-foot restaurant, withdrawn Item 19, six loss years and closed US shops belong on GDK’s row.

Figures from 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document · dataset year 2026.