Food & Beverage

Nothing Bundt Cakes Franchise

A gourmet bakery chain specializing in specialty bundt cakes sold in multiple sizes and flavors, alongside other food items and retail merchandise, from small storefront bakeries. Predecessor Nothing Bundt Franchising, Inc. was formed in Nevada in October 2005 and offered franchises from May 2006 (as Nothing Bundt Franchising LLC) until an August 2021 securitization transaction created the current franchisor entity, NBC Franchisor LLC, majority-owned by Roark Capital and, per a March 2026 agreement, pending acquisition by KKR. Franchised unit count grew every year of the FDD's three-year window, accelerating from +83 in 2023 to +128 in 2025.

Opening more locationsFounded 2005HQ: Dallas, TX

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 Nothing Bundt Cakes'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

$45,000

Total to open

$475,200–$994,100

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 Nothing Bundt Cakes's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$775,200 – $1,294,100

Startup investment

$475,200–$994,100

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. Nothing Bundt Cakes'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 Nothing Bundt Cakes'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

5.9–12.4 years

Weigh that payback period against what you already know: Nothing Bundt Cakes 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 Nothing Bundt Cakes 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 Nothing Bundt Cakes's FDD, the section franchisors use to disclose real openings and closings.

+83

+101

+128

202320242025

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2023	459	542	+83
2024	542	643	+101
2025	643	771	+128

Most recent year (2025): gained 128 franchised units, ending the year at 771 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: initial training and administration of the Marketing Production Fund and Paid Media Fund; franchisees must purchase initial inventory from NBC Distribution and fund a required Opening Advertising Program.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: a protected Territory around the Approved Location sized by market factors (population density, drive times) with no fixed minimum or maximum radius, except that a Territory granted at a right-of-first-refusal site may be limited to the physical footprint of that site alone.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year term from the bakery's opening date, with one additional 10-year renewal term available if the franchisee gives timely notice and meets then-current conditions; a Development Rights Rider carries its own term tied to development obligations and does not renew.

How Nothing Bundt Cakes 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

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

Nothing Bundt Cakes and Jamba are both food & beverage franchises; Nothing Bundt Cakes's total investment starts about $5,650 lower than Jamba's. Jamba Franchise
Nothing Bundt Cakes and Penn Station are both food & beverage franchises; Nothing Bundt Cakes's total investment starts about $32,300 lower than Penn Station's. Penn Station Franchise

Where this came from: Nothing Bundt Cakes' current entity only files a Net Worth/Experience Exemption notice with California DFPI (dfpi id 538772, NBC Franchisor LLC; a separate, older DFPI entity 654448 for predecessor Nothing Bundt Franchising, LLC last filed a real FDD in 2020), so this entry is sourced from Minnesota's CARDS registry instead: MN File No. 10022, Clean FDD issued April 30, 2026, filed 9/10/2026, effective 9/14/2026. hqLocation is corrected from the automated parser's "Lansing, MI" (likely a registered-agent address) -- Item 1 gives the real principal business address as 5005 Lyndon B. Johnson Pkwy, Dallas, Texas. Item 5: $45,000 initial franchise fee. Item 6: royalty is 6% of weekly Net Revenues; combined Marketing Production Fund and Paid Media Fund contributions are 5% of weekly Net Revenues (the two funds are not additive -- 5% total). Item 7 Total, new Bakery <=1,800 sq ft (the standard single-unit Franchise Agreement, no development rights): $475,200-$994,100 -- the automated parser instead picked up the combined total for a franchisee also signing a Development Rights Rider for 3 bakeries ($520,200-$1,039,100), which bundles in the multi-unit development fee. Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed. foundedYear reflects the earliest entity-formation date the FDD's Item 1 discloses; the FDD does not state an earlier date for the brand's actual first bakery. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-09-14. 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.