Food & Beverage

7 Brew Franchise

A drive-thru-only coffee, tea, and energy-drink stand franchise operated from small modular buildings with no interior seating, built around a high-volume, greeter-assisted walk-up and drive-thru ordering model. The first 7 BREW stand opened for business in February 2017; Brew Culture Franchise, LLC's direct parent acquired control of the system in January 2020, and the franchisor began offering franchises in March 2021, with investment funds affiliated with Blackstone Inc. among its owners. Franchised unit count accelerated sharply across the FDD's three-year window, nearly doubling from 297 to 578 stores in 2025 alone.

Opening more locationsFounded 2017HQ: Springdale, AR

Every franchisor has to file a document called an FDD before they can legally sell you a franchise. Buried in it are the two things a sales rep won't volunteer: what you'll actually spend to open, and whether existing locations are opening or closing. That's what's below, pulled straight from 7 Brew's own filing.

What it costs to open

From the filing's investment breakdown -- not a "starting at" number a sales rep quoted you.

Franchise fee

$35,000

Total to open

$940,500–$2,283,500

Ongoing royalty

Not a %-of-revenue fee -- see FDD

What you'd actually spend, over time

The upfront cost is only part of it. Plug in what you expect a location to bring in, and see the real total once royalties over a few years are added on top.

Your estimated annual revenue

Defaulted to a rough food & beverage industry average, not a figure from 7 Brew's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Startup investment (royalty not included -- see below)

$940,500 – $2,283,500

7 Brew doesn't charge a straightforward percentage-of-revenue royalty -- its FDD describes a different ongoing-fee structure instead. That cost isn't included in the total above; check the FDD directly for the real terms before using this figure to compare against other franchises.

When would you break even?

Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. 7 Brew's FDD doesn't disclose a reliable profit figure (most franchisors don't), so this starts from a typical food & beverage profit margin (~8%) and applies it to the revenue you entered above -- adjust the percentage to your own realistic estimate.

Estimated profit margin (% of revenue)

%≈ $80,000/year

Defaulted to a general food & beverage industry benchmark, not a figure from 7 Brew's own filing -- this is a starting point to adjust, not a promise about what franchisees actually make.

At that profit, you'd break even in about

11.8–28.5 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: 7 Brew is opening more locations. A long payback period on a shrinking brand is a very different bet than the same payback period on a growing one.

Is 7 Brew actually growing?

Franchisors have to report, every year, how many locations opened, closed, or changed hands. Most franchise sites never show you this. Here it is:

Locations opened vs. closed, by year

Growing

From Item 20 of 7 Brew's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

+137

+136

+281

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	24	161	+137
2024	161	297	+136
2025	297	578	+281

Most recent year (2025): gained 281 franchised units, ending the year at 578 total.

What you're actually signing up for

The cost and growth numbers above are only part of the picture. These three FDD items are the ones a prospective franchisee tends to weigh most heavily once they're past the sticker price.

Training & ongoing support (Item 11)

Item 11: 7 Brew reviews and accepts (rather than selects) each proposed Store site, provides a Brand Fund-paid "opening team" at its discretion for the Store's opening phase, and requires franchisees to buy the modular building ($310,000-$600,000) and coffee equipment package (~$60,000) from an affiliated supplier.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: a real "Area of Protection" for Traditional Stores only -- a 1.5 or 2 mile radius depending on the size of the Metropolitan Statistical Area -- but no protection at all against Non-Traditional 7 BREW Stores, which the franchisor and its affiliates may open anywhere, including inside another franchisee's Area of Protection.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 15-year term from the Store's opening date, with the right (if in good standing) to acquire up to two 5-year successor franchises for a $10,000 successor-franchise fee each, plus a required remodel/upgrade before each renewal.

How 7 Brew compares to other Food & Beverage franchises

Across the 50 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $882,585–$2,162,912, with royalties averaging around 5.6% of gross sales (based on the 46 of them that charge a flat %-of-revenue royalty).

Dave's Hot Chicken

$617,800–$2,170,000 · 6% royalty

Slim Chickens

$1,188,900–$4,944,000 · 5% royalty

Ziggi's Coffee

$315,830–$2,093,361 · 6% royalty

Crumbl

$848,566–$1,472,533 · 8% royalty

Little Caesars

$376,500–$1,769,200 · 6% royalty

Jamba

$480,850–$941,300 · 6% royalty

Tropical Smoothie Cafe

$300,000–$720,500 · 6% royalty

Playa Bowls

$188,675–$636,458 · 6% royalty

Kona Ice

$114,730–$228,601 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Firehouse Subs

$166,671–$950,351 · 6% royalty

Wingstop

$310,400–$1,048,500 · 6% royalty

Jersey Mike's Subs

$436,176–$1,162,228 · 6.5% royalty

Dunkin'

$532,400–$1,832,500 · 5.9% royalty

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen

$1,222,045–$3,923,245 · 5% royalty

Del Taco

$1,461,200–$3,313,500 · 5% royalty

Blaze Pizza

$757,000–$1,297,100 · 5% royalty

Church's Texas Chicken

$1,202,400–$1,886,300 · 5% royalty

MOD Pizza

$924,732–$1,220,633 · 5% royalty

Twin Peaks

$2,959,000–$5,734,000 · 5% royalty

McDonald's

$1,470,500–$2,642,000 · 5% royalty

Subway

$263,000–$630,000 · 8% royalty

Taco Bell

$1,859,750–$4,312,200 · 5.5% royalty

Domino's Pizza

$231,450–$743,500 · 5.5% royalty

KFC

$2,107,575–$4,155,000 · 5% royalty

Burger King

$2,039,200–$4,730,600 · 4.5% royalty

Chick-fil-A

$317,521–$3,463,155 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Penn Station

$507,500–$858,750 · non-%-of-revenue royalty

Nekter Juice Bar

$243,155–$647,160 · 6% royalty

Jimmy John's

$366,200–$733,500 · 6% royalty

Sonic Drive-In

$1,485,200–$2,522,900 · 5% royalty

Papa John's

$281,485–$890,267 · 5% royalty

Hungry Howie's Pizza & Subs

$238,982–$697,322 · 5.5% royalty

Jack in the Box

$1,909,500–$4,041,500 · 5% royalty

Wendy's

$1,523,957–$2,992,000 · 4% royalty

Marco's Pizza

$286,477–$811,186 · 5.5% royalty

Pizza Hut

$846,000–$2,130,000 · 6% royalty

Chicken Salad Chick

$777,000–$998,500 · 5% royalty

Teriyaki Madness

$392,667–$1,121,405 · 6% royalty

Cold Stone Creamery

$390,675–$680,775 · 6% royalty

Scooter's Coffee

$1,163,650–$1,345,750 · 6% royalty

Nothing Bundt Cakes

$475,200–$994,100 · 6% royalty

Five Guys

$977,850–$1,375,750 · 6% royalty

Tim Hortons

$427,500–$3,312,500 · 6% royalty

Swig

$608,400–$1,718,000 · 7% royalty

Culver's

$3,406,350–$10,294,100 · 4% royalty

Dairy Queen

$1,516,200–$2,543,050 · 4% royalty

Paris Baguette

$727,515–$1,860,550 · 5% royalty

Jollibee

$1,614,568–$4,589,057 · 5% royalty

Smoothie King

$329,850–$683,215 · 6% royalty

Keep going

7 Brew and MOD Pizza are both food & beverage franchises; MOD Pizza's total investment starts about $15,768 lower than 7 Brew's. MOD Pizza Franchise
7 Brew and Five Guys are both food & beverage franchises; 7 Brew's total investment starts about $37,350 lower than Five Guys's. Five Guys Franchise

Where this came from: MN CARDS file 9571, Clean FDD issued May 11, 2026, filed 5/12/2026, effective 6/17/2026. California DFPI entity id 520383 (legal name used here) has an older registration (App ID APP00032259, effective 12/11/2024) still active but well behind this MN filing, so this entry is sourced from MN instead. Item 5: $35,000 initial franchise fee for a first Store ($25,000 for the 2nd and each subsequent Store under a Development Rights Rider); a separate $10,000-per-Store development fee applies under a DRR and is not included in the Item 7 total below. Item 6: royalty is sales-tiered by the Store's preceding calendar-week Gross Sales -- 4.5% under $20,000/week, 5.5% between $20,000-$25,000/week, 7% above $25,000/week -- so royaltyPercent is set to null rather than a single misleading number, following the Kona Ice/Penn Station precedent; Brand Fund contribution is currently 2% of weekly Gross Sales (a disclosed maximum), plus a Technology Fee currently 0.25% of weekly Gross Sales. Item 7 Total: $940,500-$2,283,500. Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed: Franchised 2023: 24->161 (+137), 2024: 161->297 (+136), 2025: 297->578 (+281); the FDD footnotes that this excludes 2 Non-Traditional (no-drive-thru) stores that opened in 2025 in Arkansas and Ohio. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-06-17. None of this is investment advice -- get the franchisor's current FDD and talk to a real attorney or accountant before you sign anything.

If you see a different unit count elsewhere: franchisors only have to refile their FDD annually, so the numbers here can run 6–18 months behind a franchisor's own real-time marketing claims -- which often aren't independently verified, and sometimes count signed-but-not-yet-open locations. A gap isn't necessarily an error on either side; it's two different snapshots in time from two different sources.