About the table
Methodology
What is in the directory, where the figures come from, and how the ranking is worked out.
Compiled from public filings and operator sites
What is in the directory
Quick-service and fast-casual restaurant brands with a current franchise offering in the United States, weighted towards kebab, Mediterranean and halal, plus the nearest neighbours by format and by cheque size.
A brand that has withdrawn from the US stays in a separate list at the foot of the table rather than vanishing, because buyers still find them and still ask. No row sits there today. Doner Shack is why the test is the document, not the website: its FDD issued 29 April 2025 is still the last US disclosure, with a full set of terms and no US outlet in 2022, 2023 or 2024. As of 2026 it is not selling US franchises; the brand’s own site says US enquiries are on hold. A filing on the shelf and an active sales push are two different facts. The table ranks the filing and says the brand is not selling.
Chicken, sandwich, hot-dog, taco and Asian fast-casual systems sit here as operating benchmarks. They compete for similar rooms, labor and capital even when the menus are not substitutes. Sharing a table is not a claim that the foods are interchangeable, that a brand is halal-certified, or that the directory likes the offer.
Fourteen rows sit on the live table right now: Döner Haus, German Doner Kebab, Doner Shack, The Halal Guys, Shah’s Halal Food, The Great Greek Mediterranean Grill, Dog Haus, Crave Hot Dogs and BBQ, Pepper Lunch, Capriotti’s, Wienerschnitzel, bluTaco, Mad for Chicken and 375° Chicken ‘n Fries. Doner Shack is on that list because of the 2025 FDD, not because it is selling franchises in 2026. Head-to-head pages exist for five pairs. Those pairs are generated from the same records; a sixth pair is not invented in prose.
Where the figures come from
Franchise Disclosure Documents are the source for fees, investment, outlet counts, agreement terms, training and Item 19 status. Some rows come from a named issued FDD; others from a comparative study of published FDDs compiled in May 2024. Each profile names its source and filing year beside the figures. The FTC’s Franchise Rule requires 23 disclosure items. The agency does not verify or approve an individual franchise’s economics.
Issued-FDD rows in this build: Döner Haus (2026 Franchise Disclosure Document), German Doner Kebab (FDD issued 3 September 2024), Shah’s Halal Food (FDD issued 10 April 2024), The Great Greek (FDD issued 17 August 2023), Mad for Chicken (FDD issued 12 March 2025), Doner Shack (FDD issued 29 April 2025) and 375° Chicken ‘n Fries (FDD issued 30 April 2024). May 2024 study rows: The Halal Guys, Dog Haus, Crave, Pepper Lunch, Capriotti’s, Wienerschnitzel and bluTaco.
The year matters more than it looks. Fees move between disclosure years. A brand disclosed in 2024 sitting beside one disclosed in 2026 is two different mornings. The date on the row is the correction. Unit counts may carry a still earlier year, as with GDK’s seven outlets at year-end 2023 inside a 2024 filing.
Official operator pages are used for current, operator-controlled facts: a location directory, a menu format, a certification document, a hold notice on enquiries. Those claims are the company’s. They do not overwrite a dated filing value. Trade reporting may add context when it names a date and a source. Undated franchise portals are not used to fill numeric gaps, because they reprint old summaries without identifying the filing.
The source order is: issued FDD; official operator document or page for the operator’s own current claims; government or recognized standards body; then reputable trade reporting for context. Marketing statements remain company statements. A development agreement, target market or “in development” count is not an open restaurant.
A field the filing does not state is left blank. It is never estimated and never borrowed from a similar brand. Wienerschnitzel has no Item 7 total in the files behind this directory. bluTaco has no ranked royalty. 375° has no founding year. Shah’s has no franchising-start year. Those omissions appear as omissions.
Item 7 line items, where a restaurant filing is on disk, live in a companion record used by the Buildout Index. If a filing’s high column does not add to its printed total, the printed total is kept and the arithmetic gap is reported. Shah’s high column sums to $410,000 against a printed $405,000. The gap is in the document.
How the ranking is worked out
Brands are ordered by total ongoing fee: the royalty, plus the national or brand advertising fund, plus any local advertising spend the franchisor can require. All three are percentages of gross sales. All three are compulsory. Item 6 lists them separately.
Where a filing gives a band rather than a rate, the low end is used, and the band itself is printed on the brand’s page. Capriotti’s royalty is 6–7%; the stack uses 6% and the profile prints the band. Dog Haus’s restaurant royalty is 6%; the 4% ghost-kitchen rate is noted, not substituted into the restaurant row.
A brand that does not disclose both a royalty and a fund cannot be scored, and sorts to the bottom rather than the top. Treating an undisclosed fee as zero would rank the least forthcoming brands as the cheapest ones.
The stack is not “all ongoing costs.” It does not silently add fixed technology fees, product markups, payment-processing charges or delivery commissions to a percentage metric. Capriotti’s 0.65% technology fee and Dog Haus’s $5,000 annual technology development fee sit on those profiles. GDK’s uncapped annual increase right and Mad for Chicken’s fund escalators are profile facts, not stack inputs until they are current required rates. The ranking measures one repeatable slice of disclosed cost. It does not measure franchisee profit, food quality, support quality or investment risk.
The other rankings follow similarly narrow rules. System size uses the dated outlet count, not a current marketing claim. Age uses the documented founding year and shows the franchise-program year separately. Entry cost sorts by the low end of Item 7 while preserving the whole issued range and filing year. Footprint sorts by the low end of disclosed square footage and omits unsized brands. Training adds classroom and on-the-job hours where both are quoted. Item 19 splits presence from absence and prints the population note on file without turning that note into a forecast. Term sorts by initial years and omits brands without a stated term, including bluTaco’s indefinite agreement.
Company development maps are labeled as company artwork.
Corrections and review cadence
The directory is reviewed on the annual FDD cycle and when a material interim change is documented, such as an offering being withdrawn or an official location directory changing. A newer operator page does not retroactively alter an older filing count: the profile explains the different dates until a newer FDD replaces the row. The review date in the page header identifies the current publication build. Each numeric row retains its own source year.
Corrections replace an inaccurate statement rather than adding a second, conflicting version. Missing current filings remain missing. Rights-uncertain images remain links rather than copies.
Reading method for the underlying items lives on QSR Field Guide. This page states what the directory includes and how it sorts.
Images used on the site are limited to files already in this publication’s static directory. Operator-supplied maps are captioned as such. Wikimedia photographs of GDK and The Halal Guys appear where those formats are the subject of the page, not as generic decoration. Captions describe what is in the frame.
What it costs to be listed
Nothing, and there is no way to buy a position. No brand in the table has been contacted for approval of its entry, and none can pay to move, appear or be removed.