BurgerFi

The question every serious franchise investor asks before committing six or seven figures is simple but consequential: does this brand have the operational durability, consumer demand, and financial structure to justify the risk? BurgerFi, the fast-casual "better burger" concept founded in February 2011 in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Florida, by John Rosatti, David Manero, and Lee Goldberg, was built around a deceptively straightforward answer to that question. The brand emerged from a real consumer experience — the overwhelming popularity of the CEO Burger at Rosatti's The Office restaurant — which convinced the founders that a mass market existed for premium, all-natural ingredients served in a fast-casual environment. That founding thesis, which positioned BurgerFi against legacy quick-service chains by leading with ingredient quality and environmental sustainability, proved prescient. The brand grew rapidly through the 2010s, reached 125 locations in the U.S. and internationally by September 2020, and made the significant leap into public markets in December 2020 when it completed a merger with Opes Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, in a transaction valued at $100 million in cash and stock, creating BurgerFi International Inc. listed on Nasdaq under the ticker BFI. The company then expanded further in November 2021, acquiring Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza and Wings for $161.3 million, transforming itself from a single-brand operator into a multi-concept restaurant company. After navigating Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings for its corporate-owned locations in September 2024 and a subsequent acquisition by Savvy Sliders on January 3, 2025, for $44 million, BurgerFi enters the franchise market in 2025 and 2026 as a leaner, restructured brand operating under an asset-light franchising model. The corporate headquarters are located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the current franchise opportunity analysis presented here represents independent, data-driven research — not marketing material prepared by the franchisor.

The fast-casual burger segment, which BurgerFi occupies, sits within the broader $331 billion U.S. limited-service restaurant industry, a category that has demonstrated consistent resilience across economic cycles. The "better burger" subsegment, characterized by premium ingredient sourcing, customizable menus, and an elevated physical environment relative to traditional fast food, has been one of the most dynamic growth areas within fast-casual dining over the past fifteen years, riding a secular consumer shift toward food quality and transparency that accelerated meaningfully in the post-pandemic period. Consumer demand data consistently shows that younger demographics — specifically millennials and Gen Z diners, who collectively represent over $350 billion in annual food service spending — prioritize ingredient sourcing, brand values, and environmental responsibility in their dining decisions, which aligns precisely with the original BurgerFi brand promise. The fast-casual dining category as a whole has grown at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 8% to 10% over the past decade, outpacing both the quick-service and full-service restaurant segments by a meaningful margin. Labor productivity pressures, including minimum wage increases across major metropolitan markets and rising food input costs, have created headwinds for operators across the restaurant industry, but brands with differentiated positioning and premium pricing power — which BurgerFi has historically maintained through its all-natural, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free ingredient commitments — retain stronger gross margin potential than commodity-ingredient competitors. The competitive landscape in fast-casual burgers is fragmented rather than dominated by a single national player, which creates meaningful franchise territory opportunities for well-capitalized investors who move early in underserved markets. The macroeconomic forces of health-conscious consumption, premiumization of everyday meals, and the ongoing consumer rejection of processed ingredients represent durable tailwinds that a brand with BurgerFi's foundational positioning is structurally positioned to capture over a long investment horizon.

The BurgerFi franchise cost structure reflects a mid-to-premium investment tier within the limited-service restaurant category. The initial franchise fee is $35,000, slightly below the $45,000 fee cited in some historical BurgerFi disclosure documents, and the brand offers a 10% veterans incentive discount on the initial franchise fee, bringing the entry cost to $31,500 for qualifying military veterans. Total initial investment for a BurgerFi franchised restaurant ranges from $523,120 on the low end to $2,030,000 on the high end — a spread that reflects meaningful variation in format type, market geography, real estate costs, and build-out scope. The wide range is consistent with broader industry investment ranges documented in multi-year BurgerFi FDD filings, which have historically cited ranges from approximately $609,550 to $1,042,500, though recent figures reflect updated cost structures post-restructuring. Investors should understand that the low end of the investment range typically applies to smaller-footprint or non-traditional locations — which aligns with BurgerFi's 2025 and 2026 stated strategic priority of pursuing high-traffic, non-traditional sites including airports, military bases, and campus hubs where smaller physical footprints can yield higher revenue per square foot. The upper end of the investment range applies to traditional freestanding or inline restaurant builds in high-cost real estate markets. For context, the average initial investment for a fast-casual restaurant franchise across the industry runs between $400,000 and $1,200,000, placing BurgerFi squarely within the expected range for the category, though the high-end figure of $2.03 million signals that premium build environments are also viable under the franchise model. The brand's post-restructuring shift to an asset-light franchising model — explicitly designed to reduce balance-sheet exposure and accelerate openings through franchisee capital — means that corporate infrastructure is increasingly oriented around supporting franchise growth rather than managing company-owned units, a structural change that should direct more corporate resources toward franchisee success. SBA loan eligibility is a practical consideration for investors evaluating how to finance the BurgerFi franchise investment, and potential franchisees should work with SBA-approved lenders to assess debt financing options against the investment range provided.

Daily operations at a BurgerFi franchise center on a streamlined fast-casual service model where guests order at the counter, receive high-quality burgers made with all-natural, hormone-free beef and a menu that extends to chicken, hot dogs, and a range of specialty items, with food delivered to the table. The brand's operational identity is built around a moderate staffing model typical of fast-casual environments, generally requiring between 15 and 30 employees depending on volume and format, with an owner-operator or multi-unit manager model that allows experienced restaurant operators to run one or several locations efficiently. BurgerFi's stated 2025 and 2026 strategic expansion priorities include non-traditional locations at airports, military bases, and campus environments, which by nature require modified operational footprints with potentially smaller crews and adapted menus relative to traditional street-level restaurants. The brand's multi-concept strategy, which includes co-branded units pairing BurgerFi with Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza, represents a significant operational opportunity for franchisees to capture additional dayparts — Anthony's pizza extends the revenue window from lunch and dinner through evening occasions when burger demand may taper — broadening per-unit sales potential. Training programs for new BurgerFi franchisees include both initial classroom-style instruction covering brand standards, operational procedures, food safety, and financial management, as well as hands-on in-restaurant training designed to prepare operators for the actual daily demands of the concept. Corporate field support, supply chain infrastructure, and marketing program access are all components of the ongoing franchise relationship, with the post-Savvy Sliders acquisition corporate structure under CEO Ian Baines indicating a leadership team focused on stabilizing and strengthening franchisee relationships after the turbulence of the 2024 restructuring. Territory structure and exclusivity provisions are defined within the franchise agreement, and prospective franchisees are strongly encouraged to review current FDD documentation to confirm territory rights applicable to their target markets, particularly given the brand's recent contraction and subsequent refocusing.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document associated with this BurgerFi franchise profile. This is a material consideration for investors conducting due diligence, as Item 19 disclosure is entirely voluntary under FTC franchise regulations, and its absence means prospective franchisees must rely on alternative data sources to form revenue expectations. However, the average revenue figure of $1.26 million per unit, drawn from publicly available data associated with the brand, provides a meaningful anchor for unit economics modeling. For context, the fast-casual restaurant industry median annual revenue per unit typically ranges from $900,000 to $1.5 million depending on market, format, and brand strength, which places BurgerFi's $1.26 million average comfortably within the mid-range of the category. Using a food-and-beverage industry restaurant-level operating margin benchmark of 12% to 18% — which reflects the realistic range after accounting for food costs typically running 28% to 32% of revenue, labor costs at 28% to 35%, occupancy costs at 8% to 12%, and royalty and marketing fees — a unit generating $1.26 million in annual revenue could theoretically produce between approximately $151,000 and $227,000 in pre-tax restaurant-level operating income, though actual results will vary significantly based on local labor markets, rent structures, operator efficiency, and sales volume. At a total investment midpoint of approximately $1.27 million (averaging the low and high investment ranges), a simple payback period calculation against the midpoint operating income range suggests a payback horizon of roughly five and a half to eight years under average performance conditions, which is broadly consistent with payback expectations in the fast-casual restaurant franchise category. Investors should note that the company managed a total of 162 restaurants as recently as April 1, 2024 — 102 BurgerFi locations and 60 Anthony's locations — before the restructuring reduced the corporate-owned footprint significantly, and that post-bankruptcy the company operated approximately 100 BurgerFi and 60 Anthony's units in early 2025, indicating that the franchise network retained meaningful scale through the financial restructuring process.

BurgerFi's unit count trajectory tells a story of dramatic growth, aggressive expansion, and disciplined contraction before a strategic restart. The brand reached 125 U.S. and international locations by September 2020, launched a six-unit franchise agreement for Saudi Arabia in 2020, and at its peak managed a combined portfolio of 162 restaurants across its two brands as of April 2024. The subsequent restructuring was significant: 14 restaurants were closed in 2023, eight more in the first quarter of 2024 alone, and an additional 19 underperforming corporate-owned locations were shut down in September 2024 as part of the Chapter 11 reorganization, reducing the BurgerFi brand to 93 restaurants with 76 franchised and 17 corporate-owned units by September 10, 2024. The acquisition by Savvy Sliders in January 2025 for $44 million, followed by the Chapter 11 liquidation plan approval on March 12, 2025, formalized the transition to a franchise-dominant model with zero company-owned units. The competitive advantages that remain for the BurgerFi franchise opportunity include the brand's 14-year consumer recognition history, its established identity in the "better burger" premium ingredient space, the potential for co-branded Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza units to drive multi-daypart revenue, and the brand's explicitly articulated 2025-to-2027 recovery roadmap targeting financial stabilization in 2025 and steady unit growth beginning in 2027. The prioritization of non-traditional, high-traffic locations — airports, military bases, and college campuses — represents a forward-thinking real estate strategy that leverages captive consumer audiences and high throughput potential within smaller physical footprints, a model that has proven highly effective for other fast-casual concepts navigating the elevated real estate cost environment of the mid-2020s. Digital ordering integration, delivery platform partnerships, and the ongoing modernization of customer-facing technology are components of the brand's post-restructuring operational refresh under current CEO Ian Baines and the Savvy Sliders ownership structure.

The ideal BurgerFi franchisee candidate is an experienced restaurant operator or multi-unit franchise investor with demonstrated management capability in fast-casual or quick-service environments. Given the brand's post-restructuring focus on disciplined franchising and reduced corporate overhead, prospective franchisees who bring prior operational experience — including familiarity with labor scheduling, food cost management, and customer experience delivery in high-volume service environments — are best positioned to succeed within the current franchise model. Multi-unit ownership is both permissible and, from a brand-building perspective, encouraged, as BurgerFi's long-term growth roadmap through 2027 depends on franchise partners who can open and scale multiple locations in defined geographic markets. Available territories are concentrated in domestic U.S. markets, with the brand's stated non-traditional location strategy pointing toward airport concourse environments, university campus dining facilities, and on-base military dining operations as priority expansion vectors. Internationally, BurgerFi's active franchise exploration is focused on the GCC region and the Caribbean, rather than broad global expansion — a lesson informed by the brand's earlier international footprint in markets including the U.S., Mexico, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom that largely contracted by 2018. The franchise agreement term length and renewal conditions are defined in the current FDD, and prospective franchisees should engage franchise legal counsel to review transfer rights, resale provisions, and territory protections before signing. Timeline from signed franchise agreement to restaurant opening typically runs six to twelve months for fast-casual restaurant builds, depending on site selection, permitting, and construction timelines specific to each market.

For serious franchise investors evaluating the limited-service restaurant category, the BurgerFi franchise opportunity presents a genuinely complex investment thesis that warrants rigorous, independent due diligence rather than surface-level evaluation. The brand carries both meaningful risk factors — including its recent Chapter 11 history, the 2024 closure of 19 corporate locations, and the post-restructuring transition to new ownership under Savvy Sliders — and genuine strengths, including 14 years of consumer brand equity in the premium burger category, an average unit revenue figure of $1.26 million, a stated strategic roadmap targeting stabilization in 2025 and unit growth in 2027, and an asset-light franchise model that aligns corporate incentives more closely with franchisee success. The brand's FPI Score of 57 on the PeerSense platform reflects a Moderate franchise performance rating, which is neither a disqualifying signal nor an unambiguous endorsement — it is an analytically grounded baseline that serious investors should interrogate against local market conditions, available territory data, and competitive positioning in their specific geography. The initial franchise fee of $35,000 and a total investment range of $523,120 to $2,030,000 place this opportunity within reach of experienced restaurant investors who can capitalize appropriately for the format they select. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to benchmark BurgerFi directly against other fast-casual restaurant franchise opportunities across unit count growth, investment range, and disclosed financial performance. The information density available through independent research platforms is the single most important advantage a franchise investor can access before committing capital. Explore the complete BurgerFi franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.