Food & Beverage

Cold Stone Creamery Franchise

A super-premium ice cream chain known for hand-mixing fresh-made ice cream with toppings and mix-ins on a frozen granite slab, also selling cakes, pies, smoothies and shakes for take-out or eat-in. Predecessor Cold Stone Creamery, Inc. operated and franchised the concept from April 1994 until Kahala Franchising, L.L.C. (formed 2008) took over the system in March 2008; Kahala is now a subsidiary of Canadian multi-brand franchisor MTY Food Group following a 2016 merger. Franchised unit count grew every year of the FDD's three-year window, accelerating from +44 in 2023 to +60 in 2025.

Opening more locationsFounded 1994HQ: Scottsdale, AZ

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 Cold Stone Creamery'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

$27,000

Total to open

$390,675–$680,775

Ongoing royalty

6% of gross sales

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 Cold Stone Creamery's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$690,675 – $980,775

Startup investment

$390,675–$680,775

Royalty per year (6%)

$60,000

Total royalty, 5yr

$300,000

When would you break even?

Revenue alone doesn't tell you this -- it depends on what's left after rent, labor, and everything else. Cold Stone Creamery'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 Cold Stone Creamery'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

4.9–8.5 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Cold Stone Creamery 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 Cold Stone Creamery 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 Cold Stone Creamery's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

+44

+40

+60

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	908	952	+44
2024	952	992	+40
2025	992	1,052	+60

Most recent year (2025): gained 60 franchised units, ending the year at 1,052 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: a required Training Program (two people included in the franchise fee; additional persons cost $1,750 each), an Annual Meeting Registration Fee, and administration of the National and Regional Advertising Funds.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: no exclusive territory of any kind -- Cold Stone explicitly states franchisees may face competition from other franchisees or company-owned restaurants, including across the street or in the same venue, and reserves broad rights to co-brand stores or sell through other channels.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year initial term from the restaurant's opening (or the remaining term of an existing lease/sublease, or concurrent with a co-branded store's agreement), with a single 5-year renewal term available if the franchisee is in good standing and meets notice and compliance conditions; the renewal agreement may carry materially different terms, including higher royalty and advertising fees.

How Cold Stone Creamery 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

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

7 Brew

$940,500–$2,283,500 · non-%-of-revenue 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

Cold Stone Creamery and Teriyaki Madness are both food & beverage franchises; Cold Stone Creamery's total investment starts about $1,992 lower than Teriyaki Madness's. Teriyaki Madness Franchise
Cold Stone Creamery and Little Caesars are both food & beverage franchises; Little Caesars's total investment starts about $14,175 lower than Cold Stone Creamery's. Little Caesars Franchise

Where this came from: Cold Stone Creamery only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (dfpi id 340201), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 9249, Clean FDD issued March 27, 2026, filed 3/27/2026, effective 4/23/2026 -- this filing is Kahala's combined Cold Stone Creamery FDD; a separate Kahala-brand FDD appended later in the same package is not used here. Item 5: $27,000 initial franchise fee for a first traditional restaurant (reduced to $15,000 for a second and later restaurant). Item 6: royalty is 6% of Gross Sales plus a maximum $10/week surcharge; Advertising Fees are 3% of Gross Sales (2% national, 1% regional/co-op). Item 7 Total (traditional restaurant): $390,675-$680,775; a separate non-traditional-restaurant total ($255,700-$533,275) is not used here. Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed. foundedYear reflects the earliest date the FDD's Item 1 discloses for the brand (predecessor Cold Stone Creamery, Inc. operating from April 1994); it does not address the concept's earlier, pre-incorporation history. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-04-23. 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.