Food & Beverage

Swig Franchise

A drive-thru "dirty soda" and specialty-drink shop franchise selling flavored sodas, teas, and treats. The Swig concept dates to 2010, and parent Swig Stores, LLC (organized in Utah in October 2016) has operated company-owned locations since 2016 -- 76 of them as of the end of 2024; Swig Franchising, LLC began offering franchises in September 2022. Franchising is brand new and still tiny relative to the 70-plus-unit company-owned base, with franchised unit count going from 0 to 16 across the FDD's three-year window while company-owned units continued expanding.

Opening more locationsFounded 2010HQ: Sandy, UT

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 Swig'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

$39,500

Total to open

$608,400–$1,718,000

Ongoing royalty

7% 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 Swig's own FDD -- change it to your own estimate.

Years of ownership

Total cost of ownership over 5 years

$958,400 – $2,068,000

Startup investment

$608,400–$1,718,000

Royalty per year (7%)

$70,000

Total royalty, 5yr

$350,000

When would you break even?

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

7.6–21.5 years

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

+14

202220232024

Year	Franchised units, start	Franchised units, end	Net change
2022	0	0	+0
2023	0	2	+2
2024	2	16	+14

Most recent year (2024): gained 14 franchised units, ending the year at 16 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 is free for the first 3 attendees (extra attendees cost $2,500 each); Franchisor will run a grand-opening social-media ad campaign in the franchisee's territory for the separate $10,000 Grand Opening Marketing Fee.

Territory protection (Item 12)

Item 12: a 2-mile-radius territory sized from the franchisee's location based on population density and other factors and written into the franchise agreement; franchisees are restricted to operating from the approved site only, with no mobile or off-site sales.

Renewal & termination terms (Item 17)

Item 17: 10-year term tied to the length of the location lease, with the right to one successor 10-year term (itself renewable again) if in good standing and not in default.

How Swig 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

7 Brew

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

Swig and Dave's Hot Chicken are both food & beverage franchises; Swig's total investment starts about $9,400 lower than Dave's Hot Chicken's. Dave's Hot Chicken Franchise
Swig and Dunkin' are both food & beverage franchises; Dunkin''s total investment starts about $76,000 lower than Swig's. Dunkin' Franchise

Where this came from: MN CARDS file 11143, Clean FDD issued May 7, 2025, filed 11/10/2025, effective 3/17/2026. California DFPI entity id 581525 (legal name used here) has a newer active registration (App ID APP00005691, effective 8/10/2026) not used for this draft -- flagging for re-verification against that filing in a future pass. Item 5: $39,500 initial franchise fee, plus a $35,000 optional Site Development Fee and a $10,000 Grand Opening Assistance fee. Item 6: royalty is 7% of Gross Sales -- hand-corrected after the automated parser picked up the 3% Marketing Fund Fee as the royalty instead; Marketing Fund Fee is 3% of Gross Sales. Item 7 single-unit Total: $608,400-$1,718,000 (a 5-unit-minimum area development package runs $766,400-$1,876,000, not used here). Item 20 Table No. 1 confirmed: franchising did not begin until 2023, so 2022 shows 0->0. You can pull the same filing yourself from the California DFPI's public franchise search. Filed 2026-03-17. 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.