Food & Beverage
Everyone says never buy a restaurant. If you’re doing it anyway, start with the lease.
A restaurant is worth very little away from its address. The years left, the escalations and the percentage rent clause decide more than the P&L does — read the lease before you argue about price.
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Cash flow model · restaurant business plan · red-flag checklist
- Base rent$6,800
- Percentage rent (calculated from the two lines below)$1,450
- CAM, triple-net and other landlord charges$1,320
You’ve heard “don’t” from everyone except the person selling it.
- The packet says “cash flow.” Nobody will say if the owner’s salary is inside it.
- The lease has thirty months left, and the renewal terms aren’t in the packet.
- A surprising amount of the revenue is cash — and the seller acts like that’s the good news.
- The chef doesn’t know it’s for sale. Everything depends on the chef staying.
Three moves, in this order.
1. Read the lease before you price anything. Years actually left, renewal options, escalations, the percentage rent clause — and whether the landlord has to approve the sale.
2. Triangulate the revenue. POS exports, filed tax returns and bank deposits, checked against each other — and ask in writing whether the cash flow includes the owner’s salary.
3. Rebuild the month and check it against the loan. Prime cost, occupancy, debt service, twelve months — so you know if the payment survives a slow January.
Your own number, and what the seller has to explain.
The restaurant business plan, and the model underneath it.
Acquisition Toolkit — three files
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
Food & Beverage Cash Flow Template .xlsx | Day-part sales, prime cost, the lease as money, and twelve months against the loan. |
Food & Beverage Business Plan Scaffold .docx | Fifteen numbered sections — the lease and prime cost get their own. |
Food & Beverage Acquisition Red-Flag Checklist Guide | Eleven sections of what to verify yourself — starting with the lease. |
Lender Package — those three, plus three more.
| File | What it does |
|---|---|
Food & Beverage Personal Financial Statement .xlsx | What you own, what you owe, and what’s liquid — the picture of you a lender asks for. |
Food & Beverage Lender Resume Template .docx | Your experience, written for whoever decides on the loan. |
Food & Beverage Loan Document Checklist Guide | Six sections of what a lender asks for, the lease included. |
Spreadsheets open in Excel, Numbers or Sheets. Your numbers stay on your computer — nothing uploads.
No hype. No loan promises.
It won’t get you approved, and it won’t argue with everyone who told you no. It helps you build the number yourself — walking away is free.
It’s built for buying a restaurant or bar that already exists. A food truck is a different purchase — permits, commissary, the truck — and we wrote about it separately.
We’re not lenders, brokers, attorneys or accountants. Where a question needs one, the files say so.
More before you decide
Food truck business plans How to value a small business Due diligence before you buy See all industries