This is Tony’s story.
How to sell a restaurant business at the right time, to the right buyer, for the right price is the question Tony had been turning over for almost three years before he picked up the phone. When the right time came, he called CGK Business Sales. Tony ran a 3-location independent Italian casual-dining concept across a major Texas metro: $7.2M in annual revenue, 78 employees including front-of-house servers and hosts, back-of-house line cooks and dishwashers, three general managers, an executive chef who had been with him for nineteen years, and two sous chefs who ran the kitchens at the satellite locations. Alcohol ran roughly 28 percent of revenue across the three locations. He was 61. His son worked in finance in Chicago. His knees were gone from 32 years on his feet on a Saturday-night service. Food and labor costs had been squeezing his margins every year since 2023, and he had stopped pretending the trend was going to reverse. He came to us in early 2024 because he was thinking about what the next ten years of his life needed to look like and did not know who else to talk to about how to sell a restaurant business at this size. This page is what happened next, and what could happen for you. Tony is a composite, not a single real CGK seller, but the patterns and details are pulled from real restaurant engagements.
The night before Tony called us.
Most owners who decide to sell a restaurant business have been thinking about it quietly for a year or two before they pick up the phone. Tony was no different. He was 61. For 32 years he had been on the line at his original location, then on the floor at all three locations on Saturday nights, then in the back office working on liquor inventory and food cost variance every Sunday morning. The business did $7.2 million in annual revenue across three locations of his own Italian casual-dining concept, employed 78 people including an executive chef who had been with him for nineteen years and two sous chefs who ran the kitchens at the satellite locations, and ran on Toast POS with a wine list Tony had built personally over the prior decade.
Why owners decide to sell a restaurant business
His son worked in finance in Chicago and called every Sunday but had stopped pretending he was ever coming home to take over the kitchens. His daughter had become a pediatrician in Phoenix. His wife had retired four years before from teaching and had been quietly insistent for the last year that they needed to start the next chapter while Tony’s knees still let him. The bigger thing was the math: food costs and labor costs had been squeezing his margins every year since 2023 in a way that was not reversing, and Tony was tired of running harder every quarter just to hold even. He had been approached four times in the prior eighteen months: twice by competing regional restaurant operators, once by a national casual-dining roll-up backed by a private equity fund, and once, in a way that surprised him, by a 38-year-old who had just left a finance career in Chicago, was looking for a single restaurant business to operate full-time, and had heard about Tony’s three locations through a CPA they happened to share. Tony did not know what his business was actually worth, did not know whether the buyers calling were the right buyers, did not know what he would do with himself if he sold, and did not have a single peer in his life who had ever sold a business at this size.
That is the night he found CGK and submitted the form. We called him back at 8:47 the next morning.
The conversation we had on the first call.
The first call was 49 minutes. We did most of the listening.
Tony talked about his executive chef Marco of nineteen years and what it would take for Marco to stay through any transition. He talked about the three liquor licenses across his three locations (one of them held under a separate operating entity for historical reasons that would have to be reconciled before sale), the lease on his original flagship location that was up for renewal in 14 months, the Toast POS data that told him which menu items were holding margin and which were quietly slipping, and the Sysco prime-vendor relationship he had built over two decades alongside four local specialty suppliers for the imported goods his menu depended on. He talked about food cost climbing from 28 to almost 33 percent of revenue over the prior three years and what that had done to the bottom line. We asked about the business in the way you would ask if you were trying to understand it, not in the way you would ask if you were trying to win the engagement. What we were listening for was not just the financials. We were listening for whether Tony was actually ready to sell, what he was working toward, and whether his expectations on price were grounded in what the market would actually support.
At the end of that call, we set up a working session: an in-person conversation where one of our Managing Directors would walk Tony through our valuation model and tell him honestly what his business was likely to command. We did not promise him a written report. Written valuations involve substantially more work, and we charge for those when a seller actually needs one for estate planning, a partner buyout, a divorce, or another documentary purpose. The walkthrough was free because Tony was clearly thinking seriously about selling, the way someone thinks about it before they actually do it. Whether that ends up being in a year, three years, or longer, we make the same call.
The valuation session was the following Tuesday at 9 a.m. at his flagship location, after the breakfast prep and before the lunch rush.
Tony was not ready to sell a restaurant business yet. He went home and waited eleven months.
The valuation session showed Tony that his business was worth meaningfully less than he had been hoping, for three reasons that surprised him. The first was the lease on his flagship location. With only 14 months remaining at closing, a sophisticated buyer would either price the deal as if the lease might not renew or insist Tony renegotiate the lease before going to market. The second was Marco, the executive chef. Marco was a 19-year tenured key person whose departure post-close could meaningfully damage the brand identity at all three locations; buyers needed to see a real plan for chef continuity. The third was the liquor license at the satellite location that had been carried for historical reasons under a separate operating entity. Reconciling that license structure was something a buyer’s diligence team would absolutely flag and price down for, and Tony had been postponing the cleanup for years.
We told Tony honestly: he could go to market now and accept the discount, or he could spend nine to fifteen months renegotiating the flagship lease for a five-year extension, structuring a real chef-continuity arrangement with Marco that included a stay-bonus tied to the eventual sale, reconciling the satellite-location liquor license under the main operating entity, and tightening the financials and the food-cost reporting so they would tell a clean story under buyer scrutiny. We said the second path would likely command a meaningfully better number from a wider range of buyers, including the first-time owner-operator entrepreneurs and regional restaurant strategics that pay premiums for institutionally clean multi-location restaurant assets.
This is the part most brokers skip. Most brokers would have signed Tony that day, taken him to market, and made the commission whether or not the deal was the best one for him. We told him to wait, even though it meant we did not get paid for eleven months and might never get paid at all if he changed his mind.
Tony went home and waited. He spent the next eleven months negotiating his flagship lease into a fresh ten-year deal at a slightly higher base rent (the landlord agreed because Tony had been a tenant in good standing for 22 years), structuring a stay-bonus arrangement with Marco that vested at closing and again 12 months post-close, reconciling the satellite-location liquor license under the main operating entity through his attorney and the state ABC, and tightening up the financials and food-cost reporting so they would tell a clean story under buyer scrutiny. He read up on what active acquirers were paying for restaurant operations through resources like the National Restaurant Association. He called us back in late 2024 and said he was ready to sell a restaurant business that was finally in the shape it needed to be in.
What we did when Tony came back.
What it takes to sell a restaurant business properly
When an owner is ready to sell a restaurant business with CGK, the speed surprises them. We took Tony’s business to market in just over three weeks once he got us his updated financials, Toast POS exports for sales-mix and labor-cost analysis by location, the three lease agreements with the renewed flagship terms documented, the reconciled liquor licenses across all three locations, the chef and kitchen retention framework, the vendor roster with Sysco terms plus the four local specialty suppliers, and the food-cost variance reporting. The blind teaser went out to 70 buyers we had pre-qualified across five buyer types: regional independent restaurant operators expanding through acquisition, owner-operator first-time entrepreneurs leaving corporate careers with severance and SBA-backed financing (very active in single-concept restaurant acquisitions), franchise-experienced restaurant operators from the casual-dining segment looking to add an independent concept, family-owned restaurant groups from adjacent metros consolidating into Tony’s market, and PE-backed casual-dining roll-up platforms.
Forty-nine of those buyers signed NDAs and received the full Confidential Information Memorandum. Thirty-two entered our structured data room. Nineteen submitted Indications of Interest. Nine advanced to Letters of Intent. We narrowed to five for management presentations. Three re-submitted refined LOIs after the management meetings.
Tony decided between two of the top LOIs. They were materially different. One was a higher headline price from a PE-backed casual-dining roll-up platform that wanted to absorb Tony’s three locations into a regional Sun Belt portfolio, with a conventional escrow structure, an earnout tied to same-store sales growth over three years, and a fund hold horizon of four to six years before the platform itself would likely be sold. The other was a slightly lower headline price from a 38-year-old who had just left a finance career in Chicago with a severance package, was looking for a single restaurant business to operate as an owner-operator for the next 15-plus years, had personal capital plus an SBA 7(a) loan pre-approved through a regional bank, and had been talking with our Managing Director for six weeks about what running Tony’s three locations might look like culturally. We walked Tony through what each would actually deliver to him under realistic and pessimistic scenarios, including what the cultural continuity for Marco and the kitchen staff would look like under each owner. The first-time-entrepreneur deal was the better one for Tony. The cash position day one was meaningfully stronger (no earnout babysitting), the structure was clean, and the cultural fit with a buyer who would actually live in Tony’s locations rather than parachute in a regional manager mattered to him deeply. He took it.
Through the whole process, the same CGK Managing Director who had taken Tony’s first call eleven months earlier was the person walking him through every conversation.
What the deal actually looked like.
How the deal looks when you sell a restaurant business with CGK
Tony’s deal closed roughly six months after we restarted the engagement. The buyer was a 38-year-old who had spent the prior fourteen years in corporate finance at a Chicago investment management firm, had taken a meaningful severance package when his division was restructured, and had been looking for a single restaurant business to operate full-time as an owner-operator for the next 15-plus years. He financed the acquisition with personal capital plus an SBA 7(a) loan arranged through a regional bank that had financed several restaurant acquisitions in the prior three years plus a seller note from Tony to bridge the gap. The deal was structured as an asset sale, as SBA 7(a) financing typically requires for restaurant operations.
The headline price was slightly below the competing PE-backed roll-up offer, but the structure was meaningfully better. About 75 percent of it came as cash at closing, funded by the SBA loan plus the buyer’s personal equity. About 5 percent was held back in escrow for 12 months to cover indemnification claims, a small working capital adjustment, and a separate carve-out for any liquor-license-transition issues that could surface during the state ABC review. About 20 percent was a seller note paid back over seven years at a competitive interest rate, secured by the three restaurant locations’ assets and acting as a financial bridge that gave the buyer near-term cash-flow flexibility through the seasonal restaurant working capital cycle and gave Tony continued financial connection to the success of the business under new ownership. The seller note is larger than typical because first-time-entrepreneur SBA deals on restaurant assets routinely require 15 to 25 percent seller financing as alignment between buyer and seller. There was no rollover equity, which is how SBA-financed deals typically structure: a clean 100 percent buyout with the seller note as the long-tail piece. Wire hit on a Friday afternoon in January.
Tony stayed on as a paid advisor to the new owner for nine months after closing, which let him personally introduce Marco and the sous chefs to the new ownership, walk through the wine list and the supplier relationships, hand off the menu engineering philosophy that had built the brand over 32 years, and shepherd the liquor-license transition through the state ABC. After nine months, Tony stepped back to an as-needed consulting arrangement that gave him the flexibility to travel and gave the new owner a phone call he could make if a real problem came up.
What happened to Tony’s people.
Tony cared most about Marco, his executive chef of nineteen years, the two sous chefs at the satellite locations, the longest-tenured line cooks who had been with him for over a decade across the prep and dinner shifts, and the three general managers who ran the day-to-day at each location. The first-time-entrepreneur buyer was a single operator who would actually live in Tony’s locations and learn the business from the inside, not parachute in a regional manager from a corporate playbook. That made the people part substantially cleaner than it would have been under a PE-backed casual-dining roll-up that would have absorbed Tony’s three locations into a regional portfolio with shared back-office, central commissary cost-controls, and likely a Marco replacement within the first year.
The buyer Tony chose kept all 78 employees, honored the existing pay structure across both front-of-house and back-of-house, and made Marco’s stay-bonus arrangement (vested at closing and again 12 months post-close) the foundation of the chef-continuity plan. The two sous chefs received expanded remit and modest comp bumps to anchor the satellite-location kitchens. The three general managers were each confirmed in their roles with quarterly performance bonuses tied to location-level food cost and labor cost. The customer base did not notice the ownership change for the first quarter because Marco was still in the kitchen and the menu, the wine list, and the family-style service culture had not moved an inch.
Tony’s son flew home from Chicago for closing weekend and ate at all three locations in two days. His daughter came up from Phoenix for the closing dinner. Tony’s wife pulled the travel itineraries she had been quietly building for two years and started narrowing them down for real. They booked a three-month rental in Tuscany for the following spring, the first multi-month absence Tony had taken from the restaurants in 32 years.
What Tony told us afterward.
Why owners who sell a restaurant business with CGK keep coming back
About four months after closing, Tony called the Managing Director who had run his deal. He said two things that the Managing Director still tells new sellers about.
The first was about the eleven-month wait. He said: “I had two restaurant brokers tell me they would take me to market in three weeks. The reason I sold with you is that you told me the truth about my flagship lease running out, the truth about what would happen to the price if a buyer’s diligence team found the satellite-location liquor license sitting under a separate operating entity, and the truth about how much of the brand identity ran through Marco. You told me what would happen to the price if I went out without fixing those things. I would have left a real number on the table.”
The second was about who he sold to. He said: “I almost signed with the PE-backed roll-up because the headline price was bigger and they sounded institutional. The fact that you walked me through what each buyer would actually do with Marco and the kitchen staff, who would still be at the line on a Saturday night in three years, and how a first-time owner-operator buyer’s hold horizon was structurally different from a fund timer, is a conversation I never even thought to have until you raised it. I sold to a buyer who is going to live in my restaurants for the next fifteen years, not optimize them inside two.”
This is what we mean when we say we sit with you in the decision, not just the transaction. Tony is one composite story, but the pattern is real. The owners we work with who decide to sell a restaurant business usually find their way to us through versions of Tony’s situation, and the relationships start with a long listening session and a free walkthrough, not a pitch.
Ready to sell a restaurant business? Where are you in Tony’s story?
If you are starting to think about how to sell a restaurant business, we should talk. There is no commitment and no pressure. The first conversation is free. The valuation walkthrough that follows is free when you are seriously thinking about selling, whether that is in a year, five years, or longer. We only charge for formal written valuations, and only when you actually need one for estate planning, a partner buyout, or another documentary purpose. Submit the form and a senior CGK Managing Director will reach out within one business day.
If you are Tony at month 1: just exploring
You are not sure if you want to sell yet. Food costs and labor costs are squeezing your margins, your knees are telling you something, your kids have built careers in other fields, you are curious about what your three locations and your liquor licenses and your chef-anchored brand might be worth, or maybe a national casual-dining roll-up has been calling you. Most of our best engagements start here. Submit the form and we will schedule a working session. You walk away with a real number and a clear sense of what to do next, with no obligation to do anything.
If you are Tony at month 11: ready to go
You have done the work to clean up the business. The financials are tight. Your flagship lease is renewed and clean. Your liquor licenses are reconciled under the right operating entity. Your executive chef is on a stay-bonus structure that gives buyers confidence in continuity. Your kitchen and front-of-house bench has real depth. Maybe a buyer is already in the conversation. You want to run a real process. Submit the form and we will be in touch within a business day to talk about timing, scope, and what your first 30 days as a CGK seller would look like.
If you are not sure where you are
Most owners are not sure. Submit the form and start with the conversation. We will figure out together where you are. We are equally happy to tell you to wait twelve months as we are to take you to market in three weeks.
Or call us directly at (888) 858-7191.
Start your own story
A senior CGK Managing Director will respond within one business day. Strictly confidential. For owners of restaurant businesses doing $1.5M+ in annual revenue. The first conversation and the valuation walkthrough that follows are free for any seller seriously thinking about selling, on any horizon.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK business broker, not a junior screener.
One of these eight people would lead your engagement.
When you decide to sell a restaurant business with CGK, one named senior Managing Director stays with you from the first call through the wire transfer, just like Tony’s Managing Director stayed with him for eleven months and then for the engagement that followed. Our Managing Directors come from Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and operating-business leadership. Cornell MBA. U Chicago Booth MBA. CFA. CMT. Naval Academy. Goldman Sachs. Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank. AIG. T. Rowe Price.
What sellers say after they sell a restaurant business (and other businesses) with CGK
I could not be happier with the experience I had selling my business with CGK. Greg did a detailed analysis of my business and helped me price and position it right for the market. After receiving multiple offers at full asking price, the rest of the process went very smoothly, and we closed in less than two months.
Hanna M.Selling my business was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had Wes by my side throughout the process. He brought perspective, pushed when necessary, and always had my best interests in mind. His experience and strategic approach allowed me to maximize the sale price while minimizing long-term risk and obligations. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose him as my broker.
Adam NevilleDerik located multiple interested strategic buyers that produced more than one serious offer. The negotiations were tough but Greg and Derik’s experience helped us overcome. We got a great result for our employees and for the owners. We would recommend them without reservation.
Bob TaylorWe sold a business that was 47 years old and being run by second generation within a year of working with Wes. CGK has a system that attracts serious prospects to review opportunities. Wes was able to make the overwhelming feeling of selling easy and to a certain extent enjoyable. I never felt alone or in the dark throughout the entire process.
Jennifer WilliamsWe decided to sell our company in 2025. Talked to another M&A company in the Houston area. We felt very comfortable with Greg and Matthew at CGK. Could not have made a better choice. From day 1 till final closing and even after 30+ days, they have been here helping us with documents and support during the transition. Thanks can not be said enough.
Rickey ThomasInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
Tony’s wife is the one who first sent him a clip of CGK on Bloomberg. She had been watching the segment one weekday afternoon while sorting through travel brochures and recognized the firm name from a National Restaurant Association article about how to sell a restaurant business that Tony had been emailed and forwarded to her three months earlier. She sent him the link with a note that read “Tony, this is the firm.” CGK Business Sales is featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation.
The CGK office Tony called was in his local Texas market. Yours might be one of these.
When you sell a restaurant business with CGK, whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Tony worked with a CGK Managing Director based out of his local Texas market, but his deal benefited from a buyer pool we sourced firm-wide, including the first-time owner-operator entrepreneur from Chicago who ultimately won. Click any city to learn about our local presence and the named Managing Director leading that market.
Other Questions Tony and Other Restaurant Sellers Ask Us
Practical answers to what comes up before, during, and after the kind of engagement Tony went through, when you sell a restaurant business with CGK.