For restaurant & food-service owners · US & Canada
Restaurants trade every day, but the gap between what a tired single unit brings and what a manager-run group brings is enormous. Understanding which side of that line you are on is the first step to selling well.
The honest version
Most single owner-operated restaurants sell for roughly 1.5–3x seller’s discretionary earnings (SDE), while multi-unit, manager-run groups shift to 4–6.5x adjusted EBITDA. The convention changes with size: buyers price a single location on what it earns for a working owner, and a group on the profit that survives after market-rate management is paid for.
The range is wide because the same business is worth different amounts to different buyers. In this sector you are usually looking at three:
Which of those is at your table changes your number far more than your menu or your décor.
What moves the number
A note on records that costs restaurant owners real money: this is a sector where under-reported cash and blended personal expenses are common, and every dollar of profit that is not in the books is profit the buyer will not pay a multiple on. Cleaning up reporting one to two years before a sale routinely returns several times what it costs in tax.
The process
Most owners in this sector sell through a listing, or take the first approach from an operator they know. Both leave money on the table, because a buyer negotiating against nobody has no reason to move on price or on terms — and a public listing tells your staff and your landlord before you are ready.
We run the opposite process. Buyers are qualified and under confidentiality agreement before they learn whose business it is. Nothing is listed, advertised, or published. Your staff, your customers, and your competitors learn nothing until you decide they should — and several credible buyers are considering the same opportunity at the same time.
The result is not only a better number. It is better terms: what happens to your team, how long you stay, how the earn-out is structured, and what happens to any real estate.
Common questions
Most single owner-operated restaurants sell for roughly 1.5 to 3 times seller’s discretionary earnings, while multi-unit, manager-run groups trade at 4 to 6.5 times adjusted EBITDA. The lease, manager depth and the quality of your books decide where in the range you land. A confidential valuation will give you a written range based on real transactions.
Multi-unit operators and franchise groups, restaurant groups and strategic acquirers, and individual owner-operators for single locations. Each underwrites the same restaurant differently, which is why a process that puts more than one of them at the table matters.
By never listing it. We run a confidential process in which qualified buyers sign confidentiality agreements before they learn which restaurant is for sale. Nothing is advertised, visits are handled discreetly, and you decide when and how your team is told — ideally once the plan is settled and their futures are secure.