How Much Does a Qdoba Mexican Eats Franchise Owner Make?

It officially reports restaurant-level EBITDA, not an owner's salary. Item 19 calls the measure “Proforma Franchisee EBITDA – including fees.” For 397 reporting traditional franchised restaurants, the average was $254,430 and the median was $246,001. The franchisor also reports a low of negative $214,733 and a high of $1,054,733, demonstrating substantial unit-level dispersion. Source: 2025 Qdoba FDD, Item 19, pp. 55–56.

The FTC's franchise-buying guide explains that Item 19 is where a franchisor's supported sales or earnings claims must appear and that buyers should examine the source, assumptions, and limitations.

The official measure is close to unit-level operating profit, but it is not cash in the owner's pocket. The FDD's expense bridge deducts food and packaging, restaurant management and employee compensation, other operating expenses, occupancy, royalty, and advertising. It excludes depreciation and amortization, and the label EBITDA means interest and income taxes are outside the measure.

• Included in the disclosed bridge: Cost of Sales; Salaries and Benefits, including store management wages; Other Operating Expenses; Occupancy Costs; Royalty Fee; and Advertising Fee.
• Excluded or not separately identified: depreciation and amortization, financing interest, financing principal, personal income taxes, maintenance capital expenditures, owner distributions, and owner compensation as a separate line.
• Also excluded from the disclosed total costs: certain development fees, franchise fees, and administrative costs. Item 19 does not quantify every omitted cost.
• Multi-unit limitation: Salaries and Benefits exclude wages and overhead above the store-management level, so a portfolio's Designated Operator or area-management overhead may sit outside reported unit EBITDA.

The sample is broad but not complete, and the reporting dates are not identical. The 397 restaurants had operated for at least one year and were not closed for 21 or more operating days during their reporting period. Sixty-four otherwise eligible restaurants had not loaded financial data, which implies about 86.1% coverage of the 461-outlet financial cohort. The trailing-12-month endpoints ranged from January 19 through September 28, 2025, and the information was unaudited. Source: 2025 Qdoba FDD, Item 19, pp. 54–56.

Item 20 should be used alongside Item 19 to review openings, transfers, reacquisitions, closures, and former franchisees by U.S. state. Combined system totals include non-U.S. locations, so this article does not use them as U.S. earnings evidence. Source: 2025 Qdoba FDD, Item 20, pp. 57–67.

A defensible FDD-anchored planning range is approximately $143,000 to $381,000 per traditional unit, before debt service, personal taxes, and capital spending. This is estimated, not official. It applies a 14.8% current-fee sensitivity margin to three Item 19 sales anchors. The midpoint labeled Base is an analytical reference, not a prediction or “most likely” result.

• Conservative: $969,398 bottom-quartile average Net Sales × 14.8% = $143,471, rounded to $143,000.
• Base: $1,596,761 total-cohort median Net Sales × 14.8% = $236,321, rounded to $236,000.
• Upside: $2,573,684 top-quartile average Net Sales × 14.8% = $380,905, rounded to $381,000.
• Margin adjustment: 14.8% equals the FDD's 15.3% average EBITDA margin less 0.5 percentage point because the advertising burden increased from 4.0% in the reporting period to 4.5% after September 28, 2025.

On the reported average, $1,661,277 of Net Restaurant Sales becomes $254,430 of Proforma Franchisee EBITDA after $1,406,847 of listed restaurant costs. This is official Item 19 arithmetic. Cost of Sales and Salaries and Benefits are the dominant expenses, together consuming 54.5% of average Net Restaurant Sales.

Not automatically. The official EBITDA already deducts store-management wages, and the franchise agreement requires a full-time General Manager. Owner involvement can increase economic benefit only when the owner performs a paid operating role, the corresponding payroll cost is actually removed, Qdoba approves the staffing arrangement, and no offsetting labor or coverage cost appears. That incremental amount is compensation for work, not passive business profit.

The conditional $311,311 illustration is $246,001 plus the BLS May 2024 median annual wage for food service managers of $65,310. BLS also reports a $63,040 median in food services and drinking places. Neither benchmark proves that a Qdoba owner may replace the required General Manager, nor that a particular unit carries that exact payroll cost.

For more than one franchised restaurant, Item 15 requires full-time supervision by an approved Designated Operator and a General Manager, subject to stated exceptions for certain non-traditional restaurants. The Designated Operator must remain active in oversight, and each restaurant must maintain one General Manager plus at least four additional leaders. Source: 2025 Qdoba FDD, Item 15, pp. 43–44.

The material percentage fees for a traditional unit are a 5.0% royalty and a currently disclosed 4.5% Marketing Fee. The Item 19 period used a 4.0% advertising burden, so its historical EBITDA is not fully current on that one input. The FDD also lists technology and training-system charges, but the degree to which every current technology charge is already embedded in Item 19's Other Operating Expenses is not fully reconciled; subtracting them again without outlet-level accounting could double count costs.

• Royalty Fee: 5.0% of Gross Sales for traditional restaurants; 6.0% for non-traditional sites. This article does not blend the two formats.
• Marketing Fee: currently 4.5% of Gross Sales for traditional franchisees. The official Qdoba franchise FAQ also lists 4.5%.
• IT Base Services: $6,300–$18,600 per restaurant per year, plus other project or support charges when applicable.
• IT Support Services: currently $250 per restaurant per 13 accounting periods, plus 0.21% of weekly Gross Sales; the FDD states this fee can be modified.
• Learning Management System: $24–$40 per restaurant per month.
• Debt service: Qdoba does not offer establishment or operating financing and does not guarantee a lease or note. Interest and principal must be evaluated separately. Source: 2025 Qdoba FDD, Item 10, p. 28.

Item 7's $548,100–$1,294,000 estimated initial investment for a traditional restaurant is a startup-capital range, not an annual operating expense. It should not be subtracted from one year of sales to estimate annual earnings. Maintenance capital expenditure, remodel obligations, replacement equipment, and working-capital changes can still reduce cash available to the owner even though they are not captured in EBITDA.

Verify the outlet-specific economics and the current fee schedule in writing. The official Item 19 result is useful, but it cannot establish what a proposed site, lease, labor market, financing structure, or owner role will produce.

• Request the written substantiation supporting Item 19, including definitions, outlet-level source records, and treatment of owner wages, technology charges, and administrative costs. The FTC confirms a prospect may request Item 19 substantiation.
• Confirm whether the 4.5% Marketing Fee, any 1.25% local marketing spend, and every technology charge apply to the exact agreement and location under consideration.
• Ask whether an owner may serve as the required General Manager, what qualifications and approval are required, and how owner compensation should be booked.
• Obtain unit-level profit-and-loss statements for mature traditional restaurants in comparable trade areas, including labor, delivery commissions, rent, utilities, insurance, and repairs.
• Interview current and former U.S. franchisees listed in Item 20, including operators near the bottom sales quartile and multi-unit operators carrying above-store overhead.
• Model loan interest, principal payments, maintenance capital expenditures, remodels, and cash reserves separately; do not treat EBITDA as distributable cash.