10 sports bar and bar and grill franchises compared on 2026 FDD data: startup cost from $373,650, royalties, unit growth, and Item 19 revenue.
Quick answer A sports bar and grill franchise costs $373,650 to $6,577,500 to open across the ten brands we compared, all with 2026 FDDs. Wings Etc is the cheapest entry, Buffalo Wild Wings runs $2,463,945 to $4,900,320, and Walk-On's posts the highest franchised median at $4,403,505 across 66 restaurants for 2025.
This comparison covers ten sports bar and bar and grill franchises with 2026 Franchise Disclosure Documents in our database, and they sit at very different price points. A bar and grill franchise can open for $373,650 or cost $6.58 million, and the revenue gap between the cheapest and the most expensive is narrower than that ratio suggests.
Wings Etc is the cheapest way in at a $373,650 minimum, Walk-On’s grosses the most at a $4,403,505 franchised median, and Buffalo Wild Wings brings the biggest system with 549 franchised units. Most of them run the same model: wings, burgers and beer served under wall-to-wall screens, with revenue peaking around game schedules. The deciding question is how much building you want to operate and how much capital you can put behind it.
Six smaller or newer systems follow further down: Anchor Bar, The Brass Tap, Mr Brews Taphouse, Boston’s, Taffer’s Tavern, and The Sports Bra. For the broader fast-food and fast-casual picture, our QSR startup cost comparison covers that segment; this post stays on full-service bars.
Here is the full cost ladder for the ten sports bar and bar and grill franchises in this comparison, ordered by entry cost.
| Brand | Total investment | Franchise fee | Royalty | Ad fund | All-in franchisor take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wings Etc | $373,650 to $2,890,100 | $39,500 | 5% of Gross Sales | 2% (can rise to 3%) | 7.0% |
| The Sports Bra | $400,733 to $1,168,958 | $55,000 | 5% of Gross Revenue | 2% now, up to 4% | 7.0% |
| Mr Brews Taphouse | $501,500 to $962,000 | $45,000 | 5% (minimum $575 a week) | 1% | 6.0% |
| The Brass Tap | $535,350 to $1,738,675 | $25,000 | 5% | 2.0% now, up to 3.0% | 7.0% |
| Taffer’s Tavern | $812,000 to $1,351,000 | $50,000 | 6% of Gross Sales | 2% creative fund, not currently charged | 6.0% now |
| Boston’s | $1,059,000 to $3,336,875 | $50,000 | 5% of Gross Sales | 3% brand fund | 8.0% |
| Anchor Bar | $1,202,000 to $3,024,000 | $60,000 | 5% of gross revenues | Up to 3.0% | Up to 8.0% |
| Hooters | $1,253,300 to $4,697,000 | $50,000 | 6% of Gross Sales | 2.0% now, up to 4.0% | 8.0% now |
| Walk-On’s | $1,688,800 to $6,577,500 | $60,000 | 5% of Gross Revenues | 2% system advertising | 7.0% |
| Buffalo Wild Wings | $2,463,945 to $4,900,320 | $25,000 | 5% of Gross Sales | 4% (2% non-traditional) | 9.0% |
Every figure comes from the brand’s 2026 FDD. Hooters’ range spans two build types: $1,253,300 to $3,022,000 for a conversion and $2,743,300 to $4,697,000 for new construction. Taffer’s Tavern’s range leaves out the liquor license, which its FDD says can cost anywhere from under $2,000 to over $250,000; that filing is labeled 2026 but was issued August 29, 2025 and runs on a June-to-May fiscal year. Several brands also require local marketing on top of the ad fund: 1% of sales at Boston’s and Taffer’s Tavern, 1% at Wings Etc when a local market is designated, and $500 a month at The Sports Bra, which also requires 1% of revenue in charitable giving. That money is spent in your market rather than paid to the franchisor, so the last column leaves it out.
Two patterns are worth naming. First, the 5% royalty is effectively a category standard, so it is not a differentiator on its own. The ad fund is: 4% at Buffalo Wild Wings against 1% at Mr Brews Taphouse is a 300 basis point swing on multi-million-dollar revenue, which is both real money and real national marketing you either receive or have to replace yourself.
Second, franchise fee has almost no relationship to total investment. Buffalo Wild Wings charges $25,000 on a $2.46M build; Anchor Bar charges $60,000 on a $1.2M floor. The fee is noise in a category where build-out is well over 90% of day-one capital.
| Metric (2026 FDD) | Buffalo Wild Wings | Walk-On’s | Hooters | Wings Etc |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Concept | Full-service sports bar | Louisiana-themed sports grill | Casual dining wings and seafood | Family sports-themed Grill and Pub |
| Franchised units | 549 | 73 | 118 | 56 |
| Company or affiliate-owned units | 629 | 5 | 76 | 26 |
| Total investment | $2,463,945 to $4,900,320 | $1,688,800 to $6,577,500 | $1,253,300 to $4,697,000 | $373,650 to $2,890,100 |
| Franchise fee | $25,000 | $60,000 | $50,000 | $39,500 |
| Royalty | 5% of Gross Sales | 5% of Gross Revenues | 6% of Gross Sales | 5% of Gross Sales |
| Ad fund | 4% (2% non-traditional) | 2% system advertising | 2.0% now, up to 4.0% | 2% national brand fund |
| Item 19 median | $3,433,937 (532 units, 2025) | $4,403,505 (66 units, 2025) | None disclosed | $1,407,493 (53 units, 2025) |
| Item 19 range | $1,352,618 to $8,127,592 | $2,287,802 to $6,699,043 | Not applicable | $837,359 to $3,728,949 |
| Opened / exited (2025) | 15 / 4 | 7 / 7 | 58 / 32 | 3 / 1 |
| Agreement term | 20 years | 10 years | 10 years | 10 years |
| Item 3 litigation | One pending consumer class action over “boneless wings” | None | None against the new franchisor; predecessor cases disclosed | None |
| Franchising since | 1991 | 2014 | November 2025 (current entity) | 2005 |
The Hooters openings figure needs a footnote of its own: its FDD says no new Hooters opened in 2025, and all 58 “openings” resulted from the sale of company restaurants during the restructuring.
A full-service sports bar is one of the most expensive restaurant formats you can franchise. The build includes a commercial kitchen, a full bar with liquor licensing, seating for a few hundred guests, patio space in many markets, and several dozen wall-mounted screens. Compare that to a takeout wing concept: Wingstop discloses $310,400 to $1,048,500 in its 2026 FDD, roughly an eighth of a Buffalo Wild Wings floor, against a $1,890,866 median across 2,116 franchised units. We break down that trade-off in our Wingstop vs Buffalo Wild Wings comparison.
Format choice explains most of the width inside each brand’s range, and nearly every headline range blends two or three separate Item 7 tables:
Three line items separate a sports bar from other restaurant formats, and all three are visible in these filings.
Screens come first. Buffalo Wild Wings budgets $275,000 to $425,000 for audio/visual equipment alone, plus $12,500 to $26,500 for a decor package. Walk-On’s combines computer, television audio, and point-of-sale systems at $250,000 to $350,000 for a standard footprint and $100,000 to $200,000 for the smaller one. Boston’s puts audio/visual at $100,000 to $255,000. A wall of screens is a six-figure capital line before you have poured a drink, and it depreciates on a schedule that does not care whether your sales met plan.
The liquor license is second, and it is the most volatile number in the category. Walk-On’s discloses $300 to $25,000 for a standard footprint, Wings Etc $500 to $95,000, and Buffalo Wild Wings $5,000 to $500,000. Taffer’s Tavern leaves it out of Item 7 entirely. In license-quota states an existing license trades on a secondary market at whatever the market says, which is why a single brand’s liquor row can span two orders of magnitude. Price yours in your specific county before you sign anything, because no franchisor range will predict it.
Buildout is third. Wings Etc puts building improvements on a free-standing restaurant at $1,310,000 to $2,200,000, architecture and engineering included; Buffalo Wild Wings puts construction and leasehold improvements for a new free-standing sports bar at $1,430,000 to $2,100,000, with $100,000 to $160,000 of architecture on top. Converting an existing restaurant is the only reliable way any of the larger brands gets meaningfully below seven figures.
Buffalo Wild Wings began franchising in April 1991 and has been part of Inspire Brands since 2018, alongside Arby’s, Sonic, Jimmy John’s, Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins. Its 2026 FDD sets out the following terms.
Total investment runs $2,463,945 to $4,900,320 on a $25,000 franchise fee, a 5% royalty and a 4% ad fund, plus a loyalty program contribution currently set at 2.2% of loyalty program sales. The system carries 549 franchised units against 629 company-owned, so corporate runs more restaurants than its franchisees do. The two sides moved in opposite directions in 2025: franchisees opened 15 sports bars and lost 4 (one non-renewal, three closures), taking the franchised count from 538 to 549, while company-owned units fell from 645 to 629 after 16 closures. The agreement term is 20 years, with a $20,000 renewal fee and a $12,500 transfer fee.
Item 19 is the deepest disclosure in the category. Across 532 franchised sports bars, 2025 annual unit volumes ran from $1,352,618 to $8,127,592, with a $3,433,937 median and a $3,574,130 average. Broken into quartiles of 133 units each, the top quartile’s median was $4,875,869 and the bottom quartile’s was $2,371,905. The 15 sports bars that opened during 2025 and the 4 franchised units that closed are left out of the tables.
One line in that Item 19 reframes the rest: the 532 units in the sample have been open an average of 15.1 years. What you are reading is what a mature location grosses after fifteen years of local goodwill, not what a new build does in year two, so price your pro forma against a first-year unit. And the 9% combined royalty and ad fund is the heaviest ongoing load in this comparison, which matters more at BWW’s volumes than anywhere else here. Our Buffalo Wild Wings Item 19 deep dive unpacks the full distribution, and if you are weighing the purchase itself, start with should you buy a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise.
Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux pairs the sports bar format with a scratch-kitchen Louisiana menu of seafood, po’boys and Southern specialties, which separates it from every wings-first competitor. It has offered franchises since October 2014, and an affiliate runs 5 restaurants alongside 73 franchised ones.
Walk-On’s discloses two footprints, and the gap between them decides which numbers apply to you. Of the 73 franchised restaurants open at the end of 2025, seven opened during the year and were dropped from Item 19. The remaining 66 averaged $4,420,387 in gross revenues, with a median of $4,403,505, a low of $2,287,802, and a high of $6,699,043. Exactly half hit or beat the average, and hourly wages averaged 17.4% of gross revenues. That is the strongest franchised median in the category, and one sentence in the FDD decides whether it applies to you: all restaurants included in Item 19 are standard footprint restaurants. If you enter at $1,688,800 on the smaller build, the franchisor has published no earnings data for the format you are buying.
The fees are a $60,000 franchise fee, a $40,000 opening support fee, and $20,000 in grand opening marketing funds, all paid when you sign. The continuing royalty is 5% of gross revenues, billed weekly, at a rate the franchise agreement fixes for the full term, and the 2% system advertising contribution is fixed the same way. A regional advertising cooperative can add 1% to 3% if one is formed in your area, and there is a technology contribution of up to $500 per month that Walk-On’s does not currently charge. The agreement runs 10 years, Item 3 discloses no litigation, and the franchised count held flat at 73 in 2025: 7 openings against 5 terminations, 1 reacquisition, and 1 other closure.
The two diligence items are the top of the range and the territory. A standard-footprint build can reach $6.58M, more than a high-end Buffalo Wild Wings, and a 73-unit system gives you far less brand pull in a new market than a 1,178-unit one. The franchise agreement protects an area that generally runs a 9-mile radius around your restaurant, though the franchisor can shrink it in dense markets, and the FDD states the territory is not exclusive: Walk-On’s reserves arenas, casinos, airports, universities and other nontraditional venues inside it. Get the radius for your specific site in writing before you model anything. The Walk-On’s franchise profile carries the current parsed figures.
Hooters is now franchised by HOA Future Franchising, LLC, a Delaware entity organized on October 10, 2025 that issued its 2026 FDD on April 30, 2026. Item 4 explains why. The previous franchisor and its affiliates filed Chapter 11 on March 31, 2025 in the Northern District of Texas; the plan sold some company restaurants to two buyers, closed the rest, and took effect on October 31, 2025. The unit tables show the result:
That is not category growth. It is a corporate estate being refranchised and trimmed at the same time, and the +26 franchised number sits on top of a system that shed 102 restaurants over three years. The fee structure is a $50,000 franchise fee, a 6% royalty, and a national ad fund currently at 2.0% with contractual room to reach 4.0%. There is no Item 19 at all, so you are underwriting a post-bankruptcy system with no franchisor revenue data. The FDD also notes that some franchisees signed confidentiality provisions with the previous franchisor, so not every operator will be free to talk. If Hooters reaches your shortlist, the substitute for an Item 19 is a long validation call list weighted toward operators who bought units in the last 18 months.
Wings Etc, based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has franchised its family sports-themed Grill and Pub since April 2005. At the end of 2025 it had 56 franchised and 26 affiliate-owned restaurants, all Grill and Pubs; the separate 2Go format had no units open. The franchise fee is $39,500 for a Grill and Pub and $20,000 for a 2Go. The standard royalty is 5% of gross sales, stepping down to as low as 4% for later restaurants under a development agreement, and the national brand fund takes 2% with room to rise to 3%.
The Item 19 is unusual in what it adds. Wings Etc reports its 53 full-year franchised restaurants in four tiers with cost percentages attached to each. The combined median was $1,407,493 and the average $1,522,668, with individual restaurants ranging from $837,359 to $3,728,949. The top tier of 14 restaurants averaged $2,193,596 in sales; the bottom 13 averaged $1,001,685. Food cost sat between 22.8% and 23.7% of sales, labor between 15.4% and 17.1%, alcohol between 5.0% and 5.9%, and the disclosed cost lines summed to 49.5% at the top tier and 52.3% at the bottom.
Those are the numbers a buyer actually needs, and almost nobody in this category publishes them. Note what they exclude: rent, royalty, the brand fund, utilities, insurance, and debt service all sit outside that 50%. The affiliate-owned restaurants go further, with a full income statement by quartile: restaurant-level EBITDAR, which is before rent, ran from 19.3% of sales ($451,569 on average) in the top quartile to 2.3% ($23,872) in the bottom. The agreement runs 10 years with one 10-year renewal, and the system added 3 franchised restaurants against 1 exit in 2025. If a lower-cost wing concept is what you are really after, compare it against the counter-service brands in our best chicken franchises breakdown before committing to a full bar.
If a $2.5M build is out of reach, three established brands sit below Buffalo Wild Wings on cost.
| Brand | Total investment | Franchised Item 19 median | Sample | Franchised units | Opened / exited (2025) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anchor Bar | $1,202,000 to $3,024,000 | $2,287,640 | 9 units, 2025 | 16 | 3 / 3 |
| The Brass Tap | $535,350 to $1,738,675 | $1,296,589 | 40 units, 2025 | 47 | 3 / 7 |
| Mr Brews Taphouse | $501,500 to $962,000 | $1,047,115 | 8 units, 2025 | 10 | 2 / 2 |
Anchor Bar carries the original-Buffalo-wing story: its FDD says the affiliated Buffalo restaurant, open since 1935, is where Teressa Bellissimo invented the buffalo wing. As a franchise it is small, and its Item 19 covers nine franchised restaurants of 4,000 to 9,000 square feet. For 2025 those nine averaged $2,449,992 with a median of $2,287,640, a high of $3,870,935, and a low of $988,703. The four-year series is the useful part: medians of $2,438,062 in 2022, $2,305,859 in 2023, $2,192,582 in 2024, and $2,287,640 in 2025. Flat, with a wide spread underneath. The FDD also states that three franchised restaurants closed in 2025, all attributed to lower sales, and none of them appear in the chart. On a base of nine, three closures is not a footnote. For contrast, the affiliate’s original Buffalo restaurant grossed $4,977,965 in 2025, roughly double the franchised median. The fee is $60,000, the royalty 5% of gross revenues, and the advertising contribution up to 3%. Put validation calls to all nine operators at the top of your list.
The Brass Tap is a craft-beer bar rather than a sports bar (its parent group also franchises Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Family Sports Pubs under a separate FDD), but it is one of the most accessible brick-and-mortar bar concepts here at a $535,350 floor. Its Item 19 covers 40 franchised bars open at least 18 months, a $1,296,589 median against a $1,382,100 average, the fourth-largest sample in the group behind Buffalo Wild Wings, Walk-On’s and Wings Etc. Watch the trajectory: three openings against seven exits last year, while 73 signed franchise agreements had not yet opened at year-end. Its two mature company bars posted store-level EBITDA of 13.5% and 3.6% of sales in 2025. Ongoing terms include a 10-year agreement, a $20,000 successor franchise fee, a $250 monthly IT fee, and a two-year post-term non-compete.
Mr Brews Taphouse is the revenue-per-dollar leader. A $1,047,115 median across eight franchised restaurants against a $731,750 investment midpoint is a ratio of 1.43, the strongest here, on a 6% fee load (5% plus 1%) that ties Taffer’s Tavern for the lightest in the comparison. The offset is scale: ten franchised restaurants (four in Wisconsin, two each in Arizona and Tennessee, one each in Arkansas and Kentucky), which means little brand recognition in a new market and a very short list of franchisees to validate against. Its affiliate-owned count also fell from three to one in 2025 after two closures.
Three smaller systems filed FDDs in this cycle that anyone searching for a bar and grill franchise will run into. Each has a story the headline cost does not tell.
| Brand | Total investment | Fee | Royalty + ad fund | Units at year-end | Item 19 basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boston’s | $1,059,000 to $3,336,875 | $50,000 | 5% + 3% | 20 franchised | 16 restaurants, reported in thirds |
| Taffer’s Tavern | $812,000 to $1,351,000 (before liquor license) | $50,000 | 6% + 0% now | 1 franchised | 1 restaurant |
| The Sports Bra | $400,733 to $1,168,958 | $55,000 | 5% + 2% | 0 franchised, 1 affiliate-owned | 1 affiliate restaurant |
Boston’s The Gourmet Pizza Restaurant & Sports Bar is the U.S. arm of the Canadian Boston Pizza system (372 franchised locations in Canada and 25 in Mexico at the end of 2025). The U.S. system is small and shrinking: 24 franchised restaurants became 20 in 2025 after four terminations and no openings, and the FDD says Boston’s collected no initial franchise fees during the year. Restaurants run 4,300 to 7,000 square feet. Item 19 splits 16 restaurants open at least 24 months into thirds: the top third posted a $3,738,832 median, the middle $2,289,242, and the bottom $1,450,854, with individual restaurants ranging from $889,031 to $4,110,133.
Taffer’s Tavern carries Jon Taffer’s name and a ventless, hoodless kitchen in roughly 2,200 square feet, a much smaller box than the full-size sports bars. The disclosure is thin. The system went from four franchised restaurants to one during the fiscal year ended May 31, 2025, with locations in Massachusetts, Maryland and Washington, D.C. ceasing operations, and the Item 19 is that single Alpharetta, Georgia restaurant: $2,976,994 in gross sales for June 2024 through May 2025. Illinois, Maryland and Virginia regulators require the franchisor to defer initial fees until it meets its pre-opening obligations, and the Illinois and Maryland notices cite the franchisor’s financial condition as the reason. Read that as a reason for extra diligence, not a formality.
The Sports Bra is a sports bar and restaurant built around women’s sports, franchising for the first time out of a single affiliate-owned bar in Portland, Oregon. It had no franchisees when its FDD was issued in March 2026. Its Item 19 shows the Portland bar’s revenue at $1,080,590 in 2023, $1,090,819 in 2024, and $893,211 in 2025, with cost of goods at 32.2% of revenue in 2025; the FDD notes that location is smaller than the franchised format and opens five days a week. On top of the 5% royalty and 2% brand fund, franchisees must spend at least 1% of revenue on approved charities and $500 a month on local marketing.
Line up the franchised medians and the ladder is clear: Walk-On’s $4.40M, Buffalo Wild Wings $3.43M, Anchor Bar $2.29M, Wings Etc $1.41M, The Brass Tap $1.30M, Mr Brews Taphouse $1.05M. Boston’s middle third sits at $2.29M, Taffer’s Tavern’s single restaurant at $2.98M, and Hooters discloses nothing.
Revenue per invested dollar reorders the list. Against each brand’s investment midpoint, Mr Brews Taphouse runs about 1.43, The Brass Tap 1.14, Anchor Bar 1.08, Walk-On’s 1.02, Buffalo Wild Wings 0.93, and Wings Etc 0.86. Walk-On’s is measured against its standard-footprint range, the only format its Item 19 covers. Wings Etc’s ratio depends on the format you build: about 1.46 against the conversion range and 0.62 against a free-standing building, so run it against the one you would actually open.
Two cautions apply to all of it. These are gross revenue figures, not owner earnings, and full-service restaurants routinely run single-digit net margins after food cost, labor and occupancy. The few profit lines in these filings make the point: Wings Etc’s bottom-quartile affiliate restaurants posted EBITDAR of 2.3% of sales, a figure that is still before rent, and one of The Brass Tap’s two company bars posted 3.6% EBITDA. A 5% royalty plus a 4% ad fund takes 9% off the top before you pay rent. And medians hide spread: Buffalo Wild Wings’ own disclosure shows a top-quartile median more than triple the weakest unit in the system. Model your specific trade area, not the system median.
Shortlisting one of these brands? Start with the full FDD analysis of Buffalo Wild Wings: Item 19 earnings decoded, litigation history, fee footnotes, and a buyer verdict for your capital level, on the Buffalo Wild Wings franchise page.
Category demand and category availability are not the same thing. The openings-versus-exits column tells you where a franchisor is genuinely awarding new units rather than backfilling markets it already lost.
| Brand | Opened | Exited | Net | Franchised units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hooters | 58 | 32 | +26 | 118 |
| Buffalo Wild Wings | 15 | 4 | +11 | 549 |
| Wings Etc | 3 | 1 | +2 | 56 |
| Walk-On’s | 7 | 7 | 0 | 73 |
| Anchor Bar | 3 | 3 | 0 | 16 |
| Mr Brews Taphouse | 2 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| Taffer’s Tavern (year to May 2025) | 0 | 3 | -3 | 1 |
| The Brass Tap | 3 | 7 | -4 | 47 |
| Boston’s | 0 | 4 | -4 | 20 |
Hooters’ +26 is the outlier, and as covered above it is refranchising rather than development. Strip it out and Buffalo Wild Wings is the clearest franchised grower, adding 11 units net even as the company closed 16 of its own, with Wings Etc adding 2. Walk-On’s, Anchor Bar and Mr Brews Taphouse replaced what they lost and no more, while The Brass Tap, Boston’s and Taffer’s Tavern shrank. A shrinking system is not automatically a bad buy, since a closure usually says more about one trade area than about the brand, but it changes what you are buying. In a contracting system the better deal is often an existing unit in a proven trade area rather than a greenfield award in an unproven one.
Capital sorts the rest of the field. Under $600K the realistic options are a Wings Etc conversion at $373,650, The Sports Bra at $400,733, Mr Brews Taphouse at $501,500, or The Brass Tap at $535,350. Between $800K and $2M, Taffer’s Tavern, Boston’s, Anchor Bar, a Hooters conversion, and a smaller-footprint Walk-On’s come into range. Above $2.4M you are looking at Buffalo Wild Wings, a Hooters new build, or a standard-footprint Walk-On’s.
Choose Buffalo Wild Wings if national brand recognition and disclosure depth matter most. A 532-unit Item 19 with published quartiles gives you far more to underwrite than any competitor, and the brand needs no local introduction. You accept a $2.46M entry, the heaviest fee load here at 9%, and an Item 19 built on units that average 15 years old.
Walk-On’s earns the shortlist if you want the category’s highest franchised median and a menu that is not interchangeable with the sports bar next door. Best for well-capitalized buyers in the South and Sun Belt where the brand resonates, who can fund a standard-footprint build that may reach $6.58M and who will nail down territory terms in the document.
Wings Etc wins when entry cost drives the decision. The $373,650 conversion floor makes it the most accessible full-service path here, and it is the only brand that breaks out franchised food, labor and alcohol costs, in exchange for a smaller brand you will market more on your own.
Look at Mr Brews Taphouse or The Brass Tap if revenue per invested dollar is your primary filter. Both clear a 1.1 ratio against their investment midpoints, and Mr Brews carries the smallest ad fund in the comparison at 1%. Both also give you a small or shrinking franchisee base to validate against, so weight your discovery calls accordingly. Treat Anchor Bar, Boston’s, Taffer’s Tavern and The Sports Bra as brands to investigate directly rather than sets of numbers to project from: each Item 19 rests on 16 restaurants or fewer, and two of them on a single one.
One rule holds across all of them: a bar and grill lives or dies on its trade area and its game-day capacity, so weigh each brand’s Item 19 against the specific building and corner you would actually operate.
For all of these franchises:
Comparing these seriously? The full 12-section FDD analysis covers Item 19 earnings, litigation history, fee footnotes, and a buyer verdict personalized to your capital and market: $49 per brand, or three brands for $99, which fits this exact shortlist. Or start with our free side-by-side comparison tool, or browse the whole category in food and beverage franchises.
This category rewards capital and site selection more than concept choice. Buffalo Wild Wings sells scale and data depth, Walk-On’s sells differentiated revenue, Hooters sells a post-bankruptcy turnaround with no earnings disclosure, and Wings Etc and Mr Brews Taphouse sell accessibility. Read each FDD in full (the FTC Franchise Rule guarantees you the document at least 14 days before signing), call franchisees in markets that resemble yours, and ask every franchisor the question its own Item 19 raises: which units are in this table, and which ones are not. Then match the distribution against what your specific location can plausibly do on a quiet Tuesday night as well as on game day.
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About this analysis The franchise data in this article is drawn from VetMyFranchise's structured analysis of 2,300+ Franchise Disclosure Documents filed with U.S. state regulators. See our data & methodology.
Between $373,650 and $6,577,500 across the ten sports bar and bar and grill brands we compared, all with 2026 FDDs. Wings Etc starts at $373,650 for a non-free-standing Grill and Pub or a conversion, The Sports Bra at $400,733, Mr Brews Taphouse at $501,500, The Brass Tap at $535,350, and Taffer's Tavern at $812,000 before the liquor license. At the top, Buffalo Wild Wings runs $2,463,945 to $4,900,320 and Walk-On's $1,688,800 to $6,577,500. A full-service bar needs a commercial kitchen, a liquor license, and thousands of square feet, which is why the floors sit high.
It depends on the filter. Buffalo Wild Wings for national scale and the deepest disclosure, a $3,433,937 median across 532 franchised units. Walk-On's for peak revenue at a $4,403,505 franchised median. Wings Etc for the lowest entry cost at $373,650 and the most detailed franchised cost breakdown in the group. Mr Brews Taphouse for revenue per invested dollar, a $1,047,115 median against a $731,750 investment midpoint. The ranking flips depending on which of those you optimize for.
Five can open below $1 million: Wings Etc from $373,650 for a non-free-standing Grill and Pub or a conversion, The Sports Bra from $400,733, Mr Brews Taphouse from $501,500 (its whole range tops out at $962,000), The Brass Tap from $535,350, and Taffer's Tavern from $812,000 before the liquor license. The low ends assume existing space and favorable real estate rather than a ground-up build.
Franchised medians ran from $1.05M to $4.4M in the 2026 filings. Walk-On's reported $4,403,505 across 66 franchised restaurants for 2025, Buffalo Wild Wings $3,433,937 across 532, Anchor Bar $2,287,640 across 9, Wings Etc $1,407,493 across 53, The Brass Tap $1,296,589 across 40, and Mr Brews Taphouse $1,047,115 across 8. Boston's reports by thirds, with tier medians from $1,450,854 to $3,738,832. Hooters discloses no Item 19. Gross revenue is not profit; full-service restaurant margins are thin.
Wings Etc, at a $373,650 minimum per its 2026 FDD. That floor covers a non-free-standing Grill and Pub or a conversion of an existing free-standing location; a free-standing building runs $1,623,650 to $2,890,100. Its franchise fee is $39,500, with a 5% royalty and a 2% national brand fund. The trade-off is an 82-restaurant system with far less brand pull than the national names.
Five percent of sales at eight of the ten brands compared here. Hooters and Taffer's Tavern charge 6%. Ad funds are where the total load diverges, from 1% at Mr Brews Taphouse to 4% at Buffalo Wild Wings, putting the franchisor's all-in take between 6% and 9% of sales. Several brands also require a local marketing spend on top.
$2,463,945 to $4,900,320 per the 2026 FDD: $2,896,445 to $4,900,320 for a new free-standing or non-traditional sports bar, and $2,463,945 to $4,500,320 for a non-free-standing location or a conversion. The traditional franchise fee is $25,000, with a 5% royalty and a 4% ad fund (2% for non-traditional locations). Buffalo Wild Wings is a franchise, though the company runs more units (629) than its franchisees do (549). Item 19 shows a $3,433,937 median across 532 franchised sports bars for 2025.
$2,051,300 to $6,577,500 for the standard footprint Walk-On's requires unless it approves otherwise, or $1,688,800 to $3,150,000 for the smaller footprint, per the 2026 FDD. The franchise fee is $60,000, plus a $40,000 opening support fee and $20,000 in grand opening marketing funds. The royalty is 5% and the system advertising contribution 2%. Item 19 reports a $4,403,505 median across 66 franchised restaurants for 2025, all of them standard footprint.
Yes, under a new franchisor. Hooters' predecessor franchisor and its affiliates filed Chapter 11 on March 31, 2025 and exited on October 31, 2025. HOA Future Franchising, LLC has offered franchises since November 2025, with a $50,000 fee, a 6% royalty, and a national ad fund at 2.0% with a 4.0% ceiling. Conversions run $1,253,300 to $3,022,000 and new construction $2,743,300 to $4,697,000. The FDD has no Item 19.
$812,000 to $1,351,000 per the FDD issued August 29, 2025, not counting a liquor license that the franchisor says can run from under $2,000 to over $250,000. The fee is $50,000 and the royalty 6% of gross sales. The system shrank from four franchised restaurants to one in the fiscal year ended May 31, 2025, and that one Alpharetta, Georgia location is the entire Item 19, at $2,976,994 in gross sales.
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