How Much Does an Ace Sushi Franchise Owner Make?

Independent owner-earnings estimate

About $400–$9,000 a year

For one traditional Ace Sushi Main Sushi Bar operated by its owner, the strongest defensible public-data scenario is approximately $400 to $9,000 in annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a base case near $4,000. This is not an official Ace Sushi earnings result. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document provides no sales, profit, or owner-compensation figures in Item 19, so the range relies on broad 2023 IRS restaurant sole-proprietor data and explicit sensitivity assumptions.

Evidence mode: Structural FDD-anchored estimate Confidence: Limited Format: Traditional Main Sushi Bar FDD: 2026, amended April 28

Officially, it provides no owner-earnings number. Item 19 states that Ace Sushi Franchise Corporation does not make a financial performance representation. It does not disclose Gross Sushi Sales, average unit volume, operating profit, net income, cash flow, owner compensation, or a performance distribution for franchised Main Sushi Bars or Satellite Stores. The applicable citation is the 2026 Ace Sushi Traditional FDD, Item 19, page 48.

The disclosure does permit the franchisor to provide actual records when a buyer is considering an existing outlet. That distinction matters: records for a specific existing Main Sushi Bar are not evidence of typical system performance. The FTC Franchise Rule Compliance Guide explains the regulatory framework for financial performance representations and substantiation.

The estimate applies only to one traditional Main Sushi Bar in a third-party Host Venue, modeled as owner-operated. The 2026 traditional FDD describes Main Sushi Bars in grocery stores, supermarkets, and other traditional Host Venues, with an on-site sushi chef. Satellite Stores receive prepared products from a Main Sushi Bar. Universities, colleges, and hospitals are offered under a different disclosure document and are not combined here. Multi-unit Area Development economics are also excluded because per-unit results cannot be multiplied without evidence about shared management, ramp-up, and unit maturity.

The range is estimated by applying explicit revenue and margin sensitivities to the closest usable official benchmark. The IRS Statistics of Income nonfarm sole-proprietorship data report 653,372 Schedule C returns for “restaurants (full & limited service) and drinking places” in 2023, with $77.217 billion in business receipts and $2.610 billion in net income less deficit. Those totals imply average receipts of $118,182 per return and an aggregate net-income margin of 3.38%.

The IRS category is substantially broader than an Ace Sushi Main Sushi Bar. It includes full-service restaurants, limited-service restaurants, and drinking places; it is not restricted to grocery-store sushi counters or franchises. Because Item 19 supplies no Ace Sushi sales distribution, the Conservative, Base, and Upside values use an analytical revenue spread of 80%, 100%, and 120% of the IRS average, paired with margins 3 percentage points below, equal to, and 3 percentage points above the IRS aggregate margin.

• Publication definition: estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit after normal unit-level operating expenses, before personal income taxes and before financing principal payments.
• All-in proxy treatment: the IRS net-income margin is treated as an all-in operating proxy; Ace Sushi fees are not subtracted again because that would risk double counting.
• Owner labor: the owner-operator scenario assumes the owner supplies the principal management and production labor contemplated by Item 15, so the result includes compensation for work performed.
• Excluded from the range: personal income taxes, debt principal, new capital expenditures, multi-unit shared overhead, Satellite Store economics, and non-traditional venues.

The FDD identifies percentage-based deductions totaling at least 25.88% and as much as 49.88% of Gross Sushi Sales before food, freight, insurance, equipment, labor, and other expenses. The lower end combines the disclosed minimum Host Venue retention of 15%, minimum Ace compensation of 8%, and the 2.88% administration fee. The upper end combines the corresponding maximums—30%, 15%, and 2.88%—plus a 2% Marketing Fund contribution if the fund is established. These figures are official FDD terms, not a profit margin.

Item 6 also identifies fixed recurring charges that can total approximately $3,540 per year during the 48-month label-machine lease: $135 per month for the lease, $10 per month for maintenance, $50 per month for Management and Dashboard Controls, and $99.99 per month for Website Usage. Equipment rental of $50 to $500 per month may apply, and annual insurance is estimated at $400 to $4,100. These amounts are official or directly annualized FDD terms, but they are not separately deducted in the scenario because the IRS margin is being used as an all-in proxy.

Owner involvement is likely decisive because the FDD requires active participation and permits a trained full-time manager only as an alternative to the owner acting as principal operator. The owner-operated figures above are therefore better described as owner-operator benefit: they may include both residual business profit and the economic value of the owner’s labor. They are not passive income.

For a manager-run sensitivity, the national BLS food service manager profile reports a 2024 median wage of $65,310. Subtracting that wage from the owner-operated scenarios produces negative residuals in all three cases. This does not prove an Ace Sushi location would lose money under management; it shows that the broad IRS benchmark does not support a manager-run profit conclusion.

Confidence is LIMITED because every earnings result is benchmark-driven rather than disclosed by the franchisor. The largest unresolved variable is Gross Sushi Sales at a comparable traditional Main Sushi Bar. The second is the full operating-expense bridge after the Host Venue share, Ace compensation, administration fee, Food Costs, Freight Charges, labor, equipment, insurance, and other deductions.

Official FDD fact

Item 19 supplies no financial performance representation; Item 6 supplies the revenue-share and recurring-fee structure.

External benchmark

IRS Schedule C restaurant data supply the revenue and net-income proxy; BLS supplies the manager-wage proxy.

Derived calculation

Average receipts, aggregate margin, annualized fixed fees, scenario benefit, and manager-run residual are reproducible calculations.

Explicit uncertainty

No same-brand revenue distribution, cost-of-goods ratio, labor ratio, occupancy equivalent, or owner-compensation disclosure is available.

Item 20 adds useful system context but does not resolve earnings. Ace Sushi had 541 franchised outlets and 48 company-operated outlets at December 31, 2025. During 2025, the franchised system opened 217 outlets, recorded 114 terminations, 14 franchisor reacquisitions, and 52 outlets that ceased operations for other reasons, while 107 outlets transferred to new owners. The cover also highlights 397 franchised outlets terminated, not renewed, reacquired, or otherwise ceased during the three-year period. These counts do not establish why individual outlets changed status, but they increase the importance of cohort-level sales, closure, and transfer analysis. See the 2026 Ace Sushi Traditional FDD, Item 20, pages 49–55.

One additional IRS observation illustrates selection risk: among the 376,535 restaurant and drinking-place Schedule C returns that reported positive net income, average net income was approximately $21,282. That figure excludes loss-making returns and therefore should not be used as an expected Ace Sushi result. It is best read as evidence that excluding weak performers can materially raise a reported average.

A buyer should replace every broad assumption with written, location-specific evidence before making a decision. The priority is to obtain comparable Main Sushi Bar records and reconcile Gross Sushi Sales to actual Commissions, payroll, operating costs, debt service, and owner labor.

• Request Item 19 substantiation and amendments: confirm that no later financial performance representation changes the 2026 disclosure and ask what written substantiation is available for any earnings statement made during the sales process.
• For an existing outlet, reconcile actual records: obtain at least 24 to 36 months of Host Venue sales reports, monthly commission statements, tax returns, bank deposits, payroll records, and invoices.
• Match the operating format: compare traditional Main Sushi Bars with similar Host Venue traffic, hours, geography, product programs, Satellite Store obligations, and maturity.
• Separate each deduction: identify the Host Venue percentage, Ace compensation, administration fee, Marketing Fund status, Food Costs, Freight Charges, insurance, equipment, technology, and all other deductions.
• Price owner labor explicitly: record the owner’s production, management, ordering, delivery, and administrative hours; then compare them with the cost of trained replacement coverage.
• Interview current and former franchisees: ask for annual Gross Sushi Sales, Commissions received, payroll, owner hours, manager use, transfers, closures, and the causes of major variance. Item 20 notes that confidentiality clauses may limit some conversations.
• Keep financing and taxes separate: calculate interest and principal from the buyer’s actual financing terms, and obtain tax advice based on entity type, state, deductions, and personal circumstances.

The defensible published range is approximately $400 to $9,000 per year in pre-tax owner-operator benefit for one traditional Main Sushi Bar, with a benchmark-driven base near $4,000. It is a LIMITED-confidence scenario, not an official or derived Ace Sushi Item 19 result. The most important earnings driver is the spread between Gross Sushi Sales and the combined Host Venue, franchise, food, freight, labor, and operating deductions. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand sales and expense data for comparable reporting outlets. Before relying on any range, a buyer should verify the current Item 19, request written substantiation, inspect existing-outlet records where available, and test the assumptions through structured interviews with current and former franchisees.

Personal income taxes are intentionally not estimated. Tax outcomes depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and owner circumstances. Debt principal is also excluded from operating earnings and should be modeled separately from actual financing terms.