Food & Beverage

Jimmy John's Franchise

Name: Jimmy John's Franchise
Brand: Jimmy John's

A fast-casual submarine sandwich chain built around scratch-made bread and a promise of fast delivery, franchised primarily as traditional strip-center and free-standing restaurants. Jimmy John Liautaud opened the first Jimmy John's restaurant in 1983; the current franchisor entity has offered franchises since July 2017 as part of a corporate restructuring. Franchised unit growth accelerated sharply through the FDD's three-year window, adding 90 net franchised restaurants in 2025 alone.

Opening more locationsFounded 1983HQ: Atlanta, GA

On record with state regulators

The Illinois Attorney General sued Jimmy John's Enterprises and Jimmy John's Franchise, LLC in 2016 over a non-competition agreement required of at-will, low-wage sandwich-shop employees in Illinois. A Cook County Circuit Court Consent Decree required a $100,000 payment to the state and notice to Illinois franchisees, managers, and employees that the non-compete was unenforceable; the decree expired by its terms in December 2019.

Disclosed in the FDD's litigation section (Item 3)

Item 3 discloses a 2016-settled data-breach class action ($125,000 settlement) over a point-of-sale malware incident, and a consolidated multi-district Fair Labor Standards Act/overtime collective action (2014-2021) that settled for roughly $1,835,000 after a court had already ruled the franchisor was not a joint employer of franchisees' employees.

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 Jimmy John's'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

$366,200–$733,500

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 Jimmy John's's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$666,200 – $1,033,500

Startup investment

$366,200–$733,500

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. Jimmy John's'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 Jimmy John's'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

4.6–9.2 years

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

+43

+90

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	2,597	2,604	+7
2024	2,604	2,647	+43
2025	2,647	2,737	+90

Most recent year (2025): gained 90 franchised units, ending the year at 2,737 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: free initial management training for 2 people (District Manager training and additional trainees cost extra), site-feasibility analysis, and an ongoing Restaurant visit; JJF also administers the Advertising and Development Fund and Cooperative Advertising Programs described in Item 11.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: no exclusive or protected territory of any kind -- JJF explicitly reserves the right to open additional Jimmy John's Restaurants anywhere outside your specific premises, and to sell through other channels including the internet.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year term, with the right to one successor 10-year franchise (on then-current terms, which may differ materially) if in full compliance. Disputes are litigated, not arbitrated, in courts near Atlanta, Georgia under Georgia law. A 2-year non-compete applies within 3 miles of the Restaurant's premises (1 mile for newer neighboring locations) after termination or expiration.

How Jimmy John's compares to other Food & Beverage franchises

Across the 35 food & beverage franchises we've hand-verified so far, the typical range to open runs $843,866–$2,063,296, with royalties averaging around 5.6% of gross sales (based on the 32 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

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

Keep going

Jimmy John's and Little Caesars are both food & beverage franchises; Jimmy John's's total investment starts about $10,300 lower than Little Caesars's. Little Caesars Franchise
Jimmy John's and Chick-fil-A are both food & beverage franchises; Chick-fil-A's total investment starts about $48,679 lower than Jimmy John's's. Chick-fil-A Franchise

Where this came from: Jimmy John's only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI, so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 8314, Clean FDD issued March 26, 2026, filed and effective 6/8/2026. Item 5: $35,000 for a standard traditional restaurant ($12,500, or $5,000 for an existing franchisee in good standing, to reopen a previously closed location; $17,500 for a non-traditional location). Item 6: royalty is 6% of weekly Gross Sales, plus an Advertising and Development Fund of up to 4.5% (currently the full 4.5%, or 2.25% for non-traditional locations) and a separate Cooperative Advertising charge of up to 2%. Item 7 Total (traditional restaurant, excluding real estate purchase): $366,200-$733,500 (a non-traditional location runs $206,200-$686,000). Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed against the systemwide summary. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-06-08. 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.