This is an independent, pre-tax store-level scenario range—not an official Chili’s Item 19 result. The base case is approximately $609,000 for one mature U.S. restaurant before depreciation, owner-level overhead, financing, capital expenditures, and personal income taxes. Because the current U.S. franchise search is focused on multi-restaurant airport development, the range has limited comparability to the company-operated traditional restaurants used as the financial proxy.
This estimate is an independent analytical scenario. It is not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Brinker International Payroll Company, L.P. It combines identified facts from the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document with Brinker International company-operated results, a federal wage benchmark, and clearly labeled analytical assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by airport concession terms, location, restaurant format, passenger traffic, sales, labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Legal franchisor: Brinker International Payroll Company, L.P. FDD issuance: September 19, 2025. Item 19: no financial performance representation, page 56. Item 20: 99 U.S. franchised outlets at fiscal 2025 year-end, including 23 Chili’s Special Venues, pages 57–66. The operating proxy is Brinker International’s fiscal 2025 company-owned Chili’s performance; the owner-labor proxy is the May 2025 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics mean wage for Food Service Managers. The official U.S. Chili’s franchising page states that current candidates are being sought for multi-restaurant airport development.
Estimated pre-tax store-level residual on $4.5 million of annual sales.
Fiscal 2025 average annual net sales per company-owned restaurant.
Company sales less food, restaurant labor, and restaurant expenses.
Company margin adjusted for franchise royalty, technology, and advertising obligations.
Royalty, Technical Services, production, National Advertising, and supplemental marketing.
U.S. fiscal 2025 year-end population; Item 19 gives no sales or profit sample.
What does Chili’s Item 19 actually disclose?
Official answer: the September 19, 2025 U.S. FDD does not disclose franchise sales, operating profit, EBITDA, net income, owner compensation, or cash flow. Item 19 says the franchisor makes no representation about a franchisee’s future performance or the past performance of company-owned or franchised outlets.
That means there is no official Chili’s owner salary, average franchise profit, median unit volume, or percentage of franchisees reaching a stated earnings level. Any annual owner-earnings number must therefore be labeled as an estimate rather than attributed to the franchisor.
Brinker International’s $4.5 million fiscal 2025 average annual net sales is a company-owned revenue measure. It is not owner income. The Federal Trade Commission’s franchise guide warns that gross sales do not reveal an outlet’s costs or profit and that company-owned economics may not match franchise economics.
- Official FDD fact
- Item 19 contains no financial performance representation. Item 20 reports outlet counts, not earnings.
- Official company proxy
- Fiscal 2025 company-owned Chili’s annual net sales and restaurant expense ratios from Brinker International’s SEC filing.
- Estimated owner earnings
- Cash-like store-level operating residual after normal restaurant expenses and modeled recurring franchise fees, before personal taxes and financing principal.
- Owner-operator benefit
- Estimated store-level residual plus the market value of one management role performed by the owner; it is not passive business profit.
How was the annual earnings range built?
Estimated answer: the model combines a $3.6 million to $5.4 million analytical sales range with adjusted store-level margins of 10.53% to 16.53%, producing approximately $379,000, $609,000, and $892,000 in Conservative, Base, and Upside manager-run scenarios.
The sales center is the Brinker International fiscal 2025 Form 10-K disclosure of $4.5 million in average annual net sales per company-owned Chili’s restaurant. Because the FDD supplies no franchised-unit distribution, the model applies an explicit 80%, 100%, and 120% spread. Those sales anchors are editorial assumptions, not quartiles or probabilities.
The margin center is derived from Chili’s fiscal 2025 company restaurant costs: 25.5% food and beverage, 32.3% restaurant labor, and 24.6% restaurant expenses. Subtracting those categories from sales produces a 17.6% restaurant operating margin proxy. The model then applies a minus-three, zero, and plus-three percentage-point sensitivity before franchise adjustments.
| Scenario | Annual sales anchor | Pre-fee margin proxy | Adjusted margin | Estimated owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $3,600,000 | 14.60% | 10.53% | $378,999 |
| Base | $4,500,000 | 17.60% | 13.53% | $608,748 |
| Upside | $5,400,000 | 20.60% | 16.53% | $892,498 |
Estimated annual pre-tax store-level owner earnings per unit.
Interpretation: the spread is driven by both sales and margin sensitivity; it is not a forecast distribution, and the midpoint is not presented as the most likely result.
Source and method: 2025 FDD Items 6, 15, 19, and 20; Brinker International fiscal 2025 Form 10-K; analytical sales spread of 80%/100%/120%; margin sensitivity of minus/plus three percentage points.
The 2025 FDD’s current percentage stack (Item 6, pages 9–15) is 1.25% Royalty Fee, 2.75% Technical Services Fee, 0.5% Advertising Production Fee, 2.22% National Advertising Program Fee, and 0.10% supplemental marketing—6.82% of Gross Sales. The company restaurant-expense proxy already includes advertising, so the model does not subtract the full 2.82% advertising stack twice. Instead, it replaces an estimated 2.75% embedded company advertising ratio with the 2.82% FDD advertising requirement, then subtracts the separate 4.0% royalty and Technical Services burden.
- Advertising adjustment: Brinker reported $146.6 million of fiscal 2025 advertising expense on $5.3353 billion of company sales, or approximately 2.75%. This is a company-wide proxy because Chili’s-only advertising expense was not separately disclosed.
- Fixed recurring amounts: approximately $1,500 annually for gift-card participation under Item 6 (pages 9–15), $695 for online ordering, and at least four SAFE assessments at about $201.08 each are not separately deducted because analogous store operating costs may already sit inside the company restaurant-expense proxy. Treating all three as incremental would reduce each scenario by about $3,000.
- Excluded items: depreciation and amortization, owner-level general and administrative expense, maintenance and seven-year remodel capital expenditures, interest, debt principal, and personal income taxes.
What does the $609,000 base scenario include?
Derived answer: the $608,748 base result starts with $4.5 million of annual sales and deducts the fiscal 2025 company-operated food, labor, and non-advertising restaurant-expense proxies, then substitutes the FDD advertising obligation and adds the FDD royalty and Technical Services fees.
| Base-case bridge | Rate | Annual amount |
|---|---|---|
| Annual sales | 100.00% | $4,500,000 |
| Food and beverage costs | 25.50% | ($1,147,500) |
| Restaurant labor, including normal management compensation | 32.30% | ($1,453,500) |
| Other restaurant expense proxy, excluding estimated embedded advertising | 21.85% | ($983,352) |
| FDD production, National Advertising, and supplemental marketing | 2.82% | ($126,900) |
| FDD Royalty Fee and Technical Services Fee | 4.00% | ($180,000) |
| Estimated pre-tax store-level owner earnings | 13.53% | $608,748 |
The latest directional check is stronger: Chili’s reported a 19.1% company restaurant operating margin for the quarter ended March 25, 2026. The model does not replace the annual 17.6% anchor with a single quarter because quarterly margins can be seasonal and the airport franchise format remains unrepresented.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Estimated answer: an active owner who genuinely replaces one paid food-service manager could have an annual owner-operator benefit of roughly $454,000 to $967,000, compared with $379,000 to $892,000 of manager-run residual. The difference is labor value, not additional passive profit.
Item 15 (pages 43–44) requires a Managing Owner. If that person does not devote full time and best efforts to daily operations, the franchisee must designate an approved Operating Partner who does. The manager-run scenario therefore assumes normal management compensation remains in restaurant labor. The owner-operator scenario adds the May 2025 BLS annual mean wage of $74,880 for Food Service Managers only when the owner performs a comparable full-time role.
The $74,880 gap represents modeled labor value performed by the owner.
Interpretation: active operation raises owner benefit only when the owner displaces a paid role without weakening execution. It does not convert the full result into salary or make the business passive.
Source and method: 2025 FDD Item 15; May 2025 BLS Food Service Managers annual mean wage of $74,880; scenario earnings shown in the first chart.
Brinker’s fiscal 2025 Form 10-K says a typical restaurant is led by a general manager plus two to three additional managers. One owner cannot automatically add back the entire management payroll. The $74,880 adjustment models only one comparable management role, excludes employer benefits and bonuses, and should be removed when an Operating Partner or equivalent manager remains on payroll.
Why is the reasonable earnings range so uncertain?
Uncertain answer: the largest weakness is format and population mismatch. The current U.S. opportunity is multi-restaurant airport development, while the $4.5 million sales and 17.6% margin anchors come from company-owned Chili’s restaurants that are principally traditional full-service casual-dining units.
The 2025 FDD Item 7 (pages 15–22) defines a traditional Prototype 18 at approximately 4,800 to 5,200 square feet with 166 to 206 seats. A Chili’s Special Venue can range from 2,000 to 6,000 square feet and 70 to 250 seats, with different service styles, menus, bars, and build-outs. Item 20 identifies 23 Special Venues but gives no separate sales, margin, maturity, airport, or owner-role data for them.
Airport passenger volume can support high throughput, but airport concessions can also carry percentage rent, minimum guarantees, long operating hours, restricted deliveries, security and badging costs, union or prevailing-wage requirements, commissary expenses, and concessionaire overhead. None of those airport-specific variables is quantified in Item 19. A buyer should not treat a traditional company-store average as an airport forecast.
The evidence confidence is therefore LIMITED: the calculation uses current same-brand FDD fees and strong same-brand company-operated data, but the franchisor discloses no U.S. franchise revenue or profit distribution and no airport/Special Venue financial cohort. The Brinker annual reports are useful for company economics, not a substitute for franchised airport P&Ls.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on this range?
Decision answer: verify airport-specific sales, concession costs, labor structure, and management requirements with written substantiation and current franchisee records. The modeled range should be replaced by location-level evidence whenever it becomes available.
- Ask the franchisor for written substantiation of every financial projection or site-specific performance statement and confirm whether it is permitted as an Item 19 supplement.
- Request actual records for the airport restaurant or concession package being evaluated, including sales by daypart, passenger-volume assumptions, delivery limits, and closure periods.
- Separate base rent, percentage rent, minimum annual guarantees, airport authority fees, concessionaire charges, utilities, security, badging, loading, storage, and commissary costs.
- Confirm whether the National Advertising Program remains the designated program for the proposed location and whether any airport-specific advertising modification applies.
- Interview current and former U.S. franchisees from Item 20, prioritizing Special Venue and airport operators, and request mature per-unit P&Ls rather than portfolio totals.
- Verify the Managing Owner and Operating Partner structure, number of managers required per unit, compensation, shared multi-unit supervision, and whether the owner truly replaces a paid role.
- Model debt service separately using the actual financed amount, rate, amortization, fees, and covenants. Do not subtract personal income taxes from this article’s pre-tax estimate.
- For a multi-unit airport agreement, model each opening date, ramp-up period, shared overhead, and development obligation. Do not multiply one mature-unit result by the planned unit count.
What is the strongest defensible earnings conclusion?
Estimated conclusion: a defensible analytical range is approximately $380,000 to $890,000 in annual pre-tax, manager-run store-level owner earnings per mature unit, with a $609,000 base scenario. An owner who replaces one paid food-service manager may have an estimated owner-operator benefit of roughly $454,000 to $967,000, but about $74,880 of that difference represents labor performed by the owner.
The result is scenario-based, not official. The most important earnings driver is the combination of annual sales and airport occupancy/labor economics. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of Item 19 results for U.S. airport and Chili’s Special Venue units. Before making a decision, a buyer should reconcile the proposed site’s written financial substantiation with Item 19, actual airport-unit records, and interviews with current and former franchisees.
All estimates are before personal income taxes. Tax results depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and owner circumstances.