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FranPicks

QSR, coffee and dessert

The best food franchises to own

Quick-service, fast-casual, coffee, and dessert brands, ranked by lowest total investment. The most-searched franchise category, and the one where the sticker price hides the most.

Photo via Pexels

A food franchise costs anywhere from about $118,000 for an Auntie Anne's pretzel stand or food truck to nearly $4 million for a freestanding Popeyes, on the brands' own 2026 disclosure documents, and the royalty that follows runs from about 4% to 8% of sales. The ranked list below covers the food brands FranPicks breaks down in full; the segment table further down adds a dozen more from their filings, so you can compare a sandwich shop with a pizza store or a smoothie cafe on the same terms.

  1. Subway Total investment: $263,000–$630,000
  2. Wingstop Total investment: $310,400–$1,048,500
  3. Chick-fil-A Total investment: $317,521–$3,463,155
  4. Smoothie King Total investment: $329,850–$1,278,900
  5. Little Caesars Total investment: $376,500–$1,769,200
  6. Jersey Mike's Total investment: $436,176–$1,162,228
  7. Popeyes Total investment: $504,545–$3,923,245
  8. Taco Bell Total investment: $934,750–$4,312,200
  9. McDonald's Total investment: $1,472,000–$2,807,000

Food is an operations business, not a real-estate one

Two food brands with the same build-out cost can run completely differently once they're open. Food cost, labor, waste, equipment maintenance, and the hours the owner personally works all vary enormously by concept, and none of them show up in the initial investment. A dessert or coffee kiosk with a small footprint and a short menu can be far simpler to staff and run than a full-service kitchen that opens at dawn, even when the two cost about the same to build. Rank on the entry price to shortlist, then judge on how the thing actually operates.

Food franchise costs by segment

Each range is the brand's Item 7 total investment across the new formats priced on its disclosure document's cover, so a brand that sells both a food truck or kiosk and a freestanding restaurant shows the full span. Auntie Anne's top figure is its shop co-branded with Jamba. Fees are from Item 5 and royalties from Item 6.

Food franchise costs grouped by segment
Segment Brand Total investment Initial fee Royalty Filing
Burgers Checkers & Rally's $214,000 to $1,915,000 $30,000 4% of net sales 2026 FDD
Burgers McDonald's $1,472,000 to $2,807,000 $45,000 5% 2026 FDD
Chicken Wingstop $310,400 to $1,048,500 $25,000 6% 2026 FDD
Chicken Chick-fil-A $317,521 to $3,463,155 $10,000 15% + profit share 2026 FDD
Chicken Popeyes $504,545 to $3,923,245 $50,000 5% 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Auntie Anne's $118,225 to $1,811,400 $10,500 to $71,000 7% of net sales 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Dunkin' $142,000 to $1,832,500 $40,000 to $90,000 standard See Item 6 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Wetzel's Pretzels $172,125 to $725,450 $7,500 to $40,000 See Item 6 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Tropical Smoothie Cafe $275,500 to $770,500 $35,000 6% of gross sales 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Baskin-Robbins $307,400 to $626,700 $25,000 See Item 6 2026 FDD
Coffee, snacks and dessert Smoothie King $329,850 to $1,278,900 $30,000 6% 2026 FDD
Mexican Taco Bell Express $287,950 to $857,700 $22,500 to the licensor See Item 6 2026 FDD
Mexican Taco John's $457,175 to $2,039,250 See Item 5 5% of net sales 2026 FDD
Mexican Taco Bell $934,750 to $4,312,200 $25,000 5.5% 2026 FDD
Pizza Marco's Pizza $286,477 to $811,186 $25,000 5.5% of net royalty sales 2026 FDD
Pizza Little Caesars $376,500 to $1,769,200 $20,000 6% 2026 FDD
Sandwiches and subs Charleys $202,690 to $1,004,447 $24,500 Greater of 6% or $300 a week 2026 FDD
Sandwiches and subs Jimmy John's $206,200 to $733,500 $17,500 to $35,000 6% of gross sales 2026 FDD
Sandwiches and subs Subway $263,000 to $630,000 $15,000 8% 2026 FDD
Sandwiches and subs Firehouse Subs $405,350 to $1,577,750 $20,000 6% of gross sales 2026 FDD
Sandwiches and subs Jersey Mike's $436,176 to $1,162,228 $20,000 6.5% 2026 FDD

The royalty spread is narrower than the investment spread. Checkers takes 4% of net sales, Taco John's 5%, Marco's Pizza 5.5%, and the sandwich brands Jimmy John's and Firehouse Subs 6%, against 8% at Subway. Two brands break the pattern: Chick-fil-A charges a share of sales and then splits profit, and Charleys charges the greater of 6% or $300 a week, a floor that matters only to a slow store.

A burger and a plate of fries with a dip, served at a diner
Ticket size, food cost, and labor decide a food franchise's economics far more than its build-out. The cheapest one to open is rarely the easiest one to run. Photo via Pexels

What a freestanding building adds

Inside a single brand, the format moves the price more than anything else. Four 2026 filings price their smallest format and their freestanding one separately:

Smallest format against freestanding format, by brand
Brand Smallest format Freestanding format Added at the low end
Firehouse SubsTraditional, $405,350 to $875,950Freestanding with drive-thru, $767,950 to $1,577,750$362,600
PopeyesNew in-line, $504,545 to $1,968,245New free-standing, $1,222,045 to $3,923,245$717,500
Checkers & Rally'sNon-traditional, $214,000 to $736,000Site-built, $767,500 to $1,705,000$553,500
Taco John'sNon-traditional, $457,175 to $848,000Drive-thru focused freestanding, $1,069,100 to $2,015,750$611,925

At Firehouse Subs and Taco John's the freestanding format is the drive-thru format, so the extra money buys a second way to sell. But it changes who can buy in. Popeyes's freestanding floor is more than double its in-line one, and a first-time owner priced for one is not priced for the other. Decide the format before you compare brands, because comparing one brand's kiosk with another's drive-thru tells you nothing.

Where to look before you commit

On each brand's page, three numbers matter more than the headline range. The royalty tells you the franchisor's ongoing cut. The average unit revenue, if the brand publishes an Item 19, tells you what a typical location actually brings in, and if it publishes nothing, treat any earnings talk from a recruiter as unverified. And the unit count and its trend, from Item 20, tell you whether franchisees are opening more of these or quietly closing them. A cheap, growing, revenue-disclosing brand is a very different bet from a cheap one that discloses nothing and is shrinking.

Wingstop shows what a full disclosure looks like: its 2026 Item 19 reports $2,007,626 in average annual net sales across 2,116 franchised U.S. restaurants, and Item 20 shows the U.S. system growing from 2,204 to 2,586 restaurants during 2025. The QSR franchise cost guide lines up royalties, ad funds and disclosed revenue for every restaurant brand FranPicks covers, and the lowest-cost franchises page sorts the cheapest food concepts by format.

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