A manager-run MOOYAH restaurant may produce roughly $20,000 to $137,000 in annual pre-tax owner earnings under this independent scenario model, with a base case near $58,000. If a trained, approved owner replaces a paid General Manager, estimated owner-operator benefit rises to about $95,000–$212,000 because it includes both residual business profit and the market value of the owner’s labor.
Legal franchisor: MOOYAH Franchising LLC. FDD: issued April 17, 2026. Item 19: fiscal-year 2025 Gross Sales for 62 traditional franchised Restaurants; no store profit, EBITDA, Net Income, cash flow, or owner compensation is disclosed. External benchmarks: IRS Statistics of Income, 2022 corporate “Food services and drinking places,” and BLS May 2025 Food Service Managers wages. Checked: July 21, 2026.
Confidence is LIMITED because the same-brand FDD supplies a strong sales distribution but no same-brand expense or earnings measure, so the model relies materially on a broader, older industry margin.
What does MOOYAH Item 19 actually report?
Officially, Item 19 reports Gross Sales—not owner earnings—for traditional franchised Restaurants during fiscal year 2025. The 2026 MOOYAH FDD defines Average Unit Volume as average Gross Sales, so neither the $1.12 million average nor the $1.02 million median is salary, cash flow, or profit.
The Item 19 population started with 72 franchised Restaurants operating at fiscal year-end. MOOYAH excluded one Non-Traditional Site, eight Restaurants opened in 2025, and one Restaurant temporarily closed for relocation. The remaining 62 traditional franchised Restaurants form the reporting set. The FDD says 27 of the 62 Restaurants, or 44%, exceeded the overall average AUV.
| Item 19 cohort | Restaurants | Median AUV | Average AUV |
|---|---|---|---|
| All traditional franchised Restaurants | 62 | $1,016,595 | $1,118,334 |
| Top quartile | 15 | $1,574,142 | $1,666,659 |
| Second quartile | 15 | $1,195,686 | $1,195,506 |
| Third quartile | 16 | $934,340 | $946,150 |
| Fourth quartile | 16 | $738,193 | $704,114 |
Source: 2026 MOOYAH Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 39–40. The overall disclosed range was $377,926 to $2,385,932 in Gross Sales. Quartiles describe historical groups; they are not probabilities or forecasts.
How is the annual owner-earnings range calculated?
The estimate applies an all-in restaurant-industry net-income proxy to three official MOOYAH sales anchors. The Conservative revenue is the fourth-quartile median, the Base revenue is the overall median, and the Upside revenue is the top-quartile median. The margin assumptions are estimated, not reported by MOOYAH.
The IRS 2022 Table 5.1 reports approximately $35.28 billion of Net Income (Less Deficit) on $617.57 billion of Total Receipts for corporate “Food services and drinking places,” an aggregate margin of about 5.7%. That category is broader than MOOYAH and includes full-service restaurants and drinking places as well as limited-service businesses. The Census definition of Limited-Service Restaurants, NAICS 722513 is closer to MOOYAH’s fast-casual format, but the IRS margin is not available at that narrower level in the selected table.
The Base margin is 5.7%. Because the IRS table does not provide a MOOYAH-specific distribution, the Conservative and Upside margins use the prescribed analytical sensitivity of three percentage points below and above the benchmark: 2.7% and 8.7%. The spread is editorial, not FDD-reported.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Net margin | Estimated earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $738,193 | 2.7% | $19,931 |
| Base | $1,016,595 | 5.7% | $57,946 |
| Upside | $1,574,142 | 8.7% | $136,950 |
Rounded display values are $20,000, $58,000, and $137,000. These are independent scenarios, not expected outcomes. A location can perform outside this range, including at a loss.
Annual pre-tax residual per traditional Restaurant; debt principal and personal income taxes are not deducted.
Interpretation: Both sales position and margin execution matter. Moving from the fourth-quartile median to the top-quartile median produces a much larger earnings change than small rounding differences.
Sources: 2026 MOOYAH FDD, Item 19, pp. 39–40; IRS 2022 Corporation Income Tax Returns, Table 5.1. Calculations use full-precision inputs and are shown to the nearest dollar.
What is included and excluded?
This treatment is estimated for one annual operating period and one traditional franchised Restaurant. It uses a corporate net-income proxy rather than EBITDA or store-level cash flow.
- Included through the IRS proxy: aggregate cost of goods sold, paid compensation and wages, rent, advertising, interest, depreciation, and other deductions reported by corporate food-service businesses.
- Recurring franchise fees: not subtracted a second time because the IRS margin is all-in; the inability to isolate how franchise fees are represented in the broad benchmark is a major limitation.
- Excluded: personal income taxes, financing principal, owner-specific distributions, retained earnings decisions, and future capital expenditures.
- No portfolio multiplication: the estimates are per Restaurant and do not assume that multi-unit overhead, ramp-up, or manager layers scale linearly.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Owner involvement can change economic benefit by roughly the value of a paid General Manager position, but that added amount is compensation for work—not passive profit. Item 15 allows an owner not to participate personally, yet requires direct on-site supervision by an approved, trained General Manager and strongly recommends that the owner devote substantial time to the Restaurant.
For the analytical owner-operator case, the model assumes the owner is trained, approved, and actually replaces a separately paid General Manager. The May 2025 BLS national mean wage for Food Service Managers is $74,880. The figure excludes employer payroll taxes and benefits, so it is a wage-value proxy rather than a complete compensation package. The official MOOYAH site also describes a system containing owner-operators, multi-unit franchisees, and multi-brand franchisees.
The owner-operator value adds $74,880 of labor value to each scenario; it is not pure business profit.
Interpretation: A working owner may capture manager labor value, but must perform the job. A manager-run owner receives the smaller residual and still retains oversight obligations under the Franchise Agreement.
Sources: 2026 MOOYAH FDD, Item 15, p. 32; BLS May 2025 national Food Service Managers wage table. Owner-operator benefit equals scenario residual plus $74,880.
How much do disclosed franchise fees absorb?
At the $1,016,595 Item 19 median AUV, the current Royalty Fee, Advertising Fee, and Technology and Support Fee total about $88,451 a year. This is an official-fee calculation from the 2026 FDD, not an additional deduction from the scenario earnings, because the selected IRS benchmark is already an all-in net-income measure.
| Recurring obligation | FDD rate or amount | At $1,016,595 sales |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty Fee | 5.75% of Gross Sales | $58,454 |
| Advertising Fee | 2.75% of Gross Sales | $27,956 |
| Technology and Support Fee | $170 per month | $2,040 |
| Current disclosed total | 8.50% plus fixed fee | $88,451 |
Source: 2026 MOOYAH FDD, Item 6, pp. 6–10. The Advertising Fee may be increased by the franchisor to 4% of Gross Sales on 60 days’ notice, and the Technology and Support Fee may rise within the contractual limit. The official MOOYAH investment page also lists the current 5.75% royalty and 2.75% marketing contribution.
What could move actual MOOYAH earnings outside the range?
The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand store-level expense or profit data. Item 19 gives a strong MOOYAH revenue distribution, but the margin must come from a broad 2022 corporate food-service benchmark whose business mix, capital structure, geography, and franchise-fee exposure do not precisely match a traditional MOOYAH Restaurant.
Item 20 also shows a changing system population. During fiscal year 2025, franchised outlets moved from 71 to 72 after eight openings, three nonrenewals, one reacquisition, and three outlets ceasing operations for other reasons. These figures do not prove why any individual outlet succeeded or failed, but they make closure, transfer, cohort age, and site-specific operating history material diligence questions.
What should a buyer verify before relying on the estimate?
The following evidence should be checked for the specific market, unit format, and operating plan. This is an analytical verification checklist, not an official earnings result. The FTC recommends scrutinizing Item 19 and speaking with current and former franchisees rather than treating sales claims as take-home income.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation and confirm how the proposed market compares with the 62 reporting traditional Restaurants.
- Ask multiple franchisees for recent profit-and-loss statements showing food and paper cost, hourly labor, General Manager compensation, occupancy, repairs, insurance, and every recurring franchise fee.
- Separate manager-run residual profit from owner labor, owner draw, distributions, depreciation, retained cash, and personal taxes.
- Model the actual lease, local wage rates, required hours, delivery mix, food inflation, and any drive-thru or nontraditional format differences.
- Build a separate loan schedule for interest and principal, then add recurring capital expenditure and future remodel needs.
- Use Item 20 contacts to ask about openings, relocations, nonrenewals, transfers, closures, and the time required to reach stable sales.
The FTC’s Amended Franchise Rule FAQs explain the requirements around financial performance representations, while the FTC’s franchise calculation guidance emphasizes reviewing Item 19, underlying documents, and professional analysis. MOOYAH’s own franchise FAQ states that sales depend on factors such as location, traffic, local marketing, investment cost, and operating effectiveness.
The strongest defensible manager-run range is approximately $20,000–$137,000 per traditional MOOYAH Restaurant annually, with a $58,000 base scenario. It is scenario-based, not an official MOOYAH earnings disclosure. The most important earnings driver is the combination of sales position and unit-level margin execution. The largest uncertainty is the lack of same-brand operating-expense and profit data. A buyer should verify the Item 19 substantiation, obtain comparable franchisee P&Ls, distinguish owner labor from business profit, and test the actual lease, manager structure, debt schedule, and capital needs before treating any point in the range as decision-ready.