First in a three-part series on the restaurant resale marketplace in 2025 that both buyers and sellers should understand for 2026.
If you think selling a restaurant is just about putting a "Restaurant for Sale" ad online and waiting for buyers to line up, you're in for a reality check. After facilitating hundreds of restaurant sales across the country in 2025, we have seen what actually works and what leaves sellers frustrated, undervalued, and stuck with a business they're trying to exit.
The restaurant resale market in 2025 was full of surprises. Concepts we thought would fly off the shelf sat for months. Restaurants owners swore were "turnkey" scared away every serious buyer. And some deals that looked impossible on paper? They closed in record time.
Here's what We Sell Restaurants, the nation’s number one restaurant brokerage firm, learned from being in the trenches of hundreds of transactions: the real truth about selling a restaurant in today's market. We’ll cover all the information in a series of three articles that will have you poised for success whether you are searching or selling in 2026.
1.Timing Matters More Than You Think
Most restaurant owners wait too long to sell. We saw it over and over in 2025: an owner burns out, revenue starts slipping, and then they decide to list. By that point, the financials tell a story no buyer wants to hear.
Ask an expert Certified Restaurant Broker about the sweet spot for selling? He will say, “When your restaurant is performing well and the momentum is moving forward.” That’s the best time to present it to the marketplace. After all, buyers aren't just purchasing your space and equipment; they're buying confidence. A restaurant trending upward, or even flat, will always command a better price than one in visible decline.
Here's something that surprises most sellers: January and August are consistently our busiest months for restaurant sales and have been for the two decades we’ve been tracking the market. These are the months of highest buyer inquiries, with the greatest number of deals going into contract, and highest online traffic. Not spring. Not fall. January and August.
Why January? New year, new goals. Corporate refugees home over the holiday start thinking about options for their lives that don’t include the corporate cubicle as we wrote in our book Appetite for Acquisition year ago. Buyers are motivated, financing is lined up after year end budgeting is complete and psychologically, there’s a “fresh-start” effect. People who've been thinking about owning a restaurant finally get serious in January.
Why August? There’s no conclusive answer except that again, it’s back to school, a kickoff time ingrained in each of use. When Fall hits, buyers heat up on our dashboards with more inquiries and web traffic increases. There may also be some impact from sports bars which surge during this time. Buyers see all the activity around weekend gatherings with friends and family that translates to a desire to own their business.
If you're a restaurant owner considering a sale, and reading this in early 2026, you're in luck. We're entering the January buying surge right now. Serious buyers are actively looking, and if your restaurant is ready to list, this is your moment. Get your financials organized, get listed, and capitalize on the motivated buyer pool that shows up every January like clockwork. If you’ve already missed January, don't panic. While January is peak season, there are deals happening year round and getting onto the market at any time is better than sitting back, especially if numbers are slipping, which leads to our next segment, the cliff problem.
2. The 2025 cliff problem:
The biggest issue we battled in 2025 was this. Restaurants that had solid 2024 numbers when the seller listed fell off a cliff in 2025. Some larger brands we work with had noticeable declines in 2025 performance, but sellers remained stubbornly wedded to their performance in 2024 for asking prices.
We'd get a listing inquiry. "Great year in 2024! Ready to sell!" Then we'd ask for current 2025 financials and... crickets. We'd chase sellers for weeks. When the numbers finally came, revenue was down 15%, 20%, sometimes 30% from the prior year.
Hiding declining numbers doesn't make them go away. It just wastes everyone's time and kills your credibility with both your Certified Restaurant Broker and the buyers who will see the current financials during due diligence. Starting with outdated or misleading numbers just means buyers walk away frustrated.
Providing up to date numbers means your Certified Restaurant Broker has the full story ready for both the bank and the buyers. “We lost our General Manager early in the year and it affected second quarter results. By third quarter, we were back on track but didn’t make up the loss,” is a much better explanation than, “sorry, here are the numbers but they are not as good as last year,” after weeks of avoiding the request.
Here's a real example from 2025: We had a casual dining restaurant that did $720,000 in 2024. The owner contacted us in April 2025 wanting to list. We asked for first quarter 2025 numbers. He stalled for weeks but finally sent them. Revenue was tracking at $520,000 annually. A 28% drop.
We could have listed based on 2024 numbers and wasted months fielding offers from buyers who would have walked during due diligence. Instead, we priced it based on current reality. It was in contract within 10 weeks to a buyer who appreciated the transparency and saw it as a turnaround opportunity.
Here’s another example of a seller whose listing we terminated. We did a valuation for a restaurant based on strong 2024 numbers. The restaurant had been performing well, and we priced it accordingly. We got plenty of interest: showings lined up, serious buyers asking questions, the kind of activity every seller wants to see.
Then, very late in the year, after multiple requests, the seller finally provided his 2025 numbers. The valuation changed dramatically. Revenue dropped significantly and earnings were very different. We sat down with the seller, showed him the math, and explained that the price needed to come down to reflect current reality.
He agreed. We adjusted the price. Then, inexplicably, he changed his mind and raised the price back up, based on the much lower 2025 income. The logic made no sense. The market didn't care about his reasoning. Obviously, no one was interested. The listing went cold. All that early buyer interest evaporated because the price no longer matched reality.
Months of momentum lost because a seller couldn't accept what the numbers were telling him.
When pricing is incorrect, multiple things happen. First, listings will sit on the market for months. Second, the listing becomes stale and the broker has to request price reductions. This leads to frustrated sellers and skeptical buyers.
Lesson Learned About Selling Restaurants in 2025: We're in January right now: prime selling season. If your numbers are strong and you're ready, list immediately. If you need time to prepare, wait for later in the year. Whatever you do, be honest about where your numbers are right now, not where they were last year. The market doesn't negotiate with denial. It just moves on to the next listing.
3. The Buyers Changed
The buyer pool in 2025 looked different than in previous years and understanding who's actually buying restaurants is crucial to positioning your sale correctly.
Who was buying:
The biggest shift? First-time restaurant buyers were a significant percentage of our transactions in 2025. These were corporate refugees, early retirees looking for a second act, laid off government employees, and ambitious hospitality workers ready to own their own place. They brought enthusiasm and capital but needed more hand-holding through due diligence and often had unrealistic expectations about day-to-day operations.
Experienced multi-unit operators accounted for fewer buyers in 2025. For many of these operators, 2025 was a contraction, not an expansion year. When interest rates continue to trend down, the recent announced GDP growth, and the overall economy that is still not being credited with the success it is generating, this will change. When it does, these buyers will return. Prepare for them to move quickly, know exactly what to look for, and rarely walk away once they’re in contract. Also expect them to be the most demanding during due diligence and the hardest to negotiate with on price.
Industry veterans transitioning (former managers, chefs going out on their own) represented about 25% of deals. They understand the business intimately but often need seller financing or creative deal structures to make the numbers work.
Franchise Buyers Franchise opportunities that were open and operating proved to be popular with buyers that didn’t want to build and instead bought existing franchises. This buyer pool includes government workers who are moving to the private sector. The Office of Personnel Management reported that approximately 317,000 federal employees left the government by the end of 2025. These government workers, used to stability, are less risk averse than those who build franchises from the ground up. In searching for their next role, they quickly shifted from franchise candidate to franchise owner, while skipping the build out completely.
The remaining buyers included some investors looking for deals, but this was a limited sample.
What buyers cared about most:
Forget curb appeal or trendy design (though those helped). In 2025, buyers were laser-focused on three things:
So, what were the deal-breakers that killed transactions?
Surprising: What buyers didn't care about as much:
We expected buyers to be pickier about decor, branding, and social media presence but that feels like a fad most aren’t paying attention to. Instead, we find them planning to simply rehabilitee any online image issues. If the numbers worked and the location was solid, buyers were happy to rebrand or refresh. We also sold several restaurants with dated interiors that buyers planned to renovate immediately.
Overall, social media following mattered less than we anticipated, unless it was a ghost kitchen or virtual brand where that WAS the business.
Real example: A breakfast cafe with 12 years in business, consistent $40K monthly revenue, and a lease with 7 years remaining sold in 8 weeks, despite needing cosmetic updates throughout. Why? The SDE was strong ($115K), the systems were documented, and POS reports and sales tax filings matched what the seller claimed. A first-time buyer saw past the worn booths and faded paint.
Compare that to a trendy burger concept with Instagram-worthy design that sat for 10 months because the lease had only 2 years left and revenue was down 20% from the prior year.
The lesson: Buyers in 2025 were more sophisticated and more cautious. They wanted proof, systems, and security, not stories about "potential" or promises about what the restaurant "could" do or an online image.
That’s it for part 1 in part two of this three-part series, we’ll cover the documentation that can make or break deals, pricing strategies, and what actually worked along with the hidden factors that sold restaurants in 2025.
Conclusion: What This Means for 2026
If 2025 taught us anything, it's that the restaurant resale market rewards preparation, honesty, and realistic expectations. The sellers who succeeded weren't necessarily the ones with the best locations or the trendiest concepts. They were the ones who understood what buyers actually wanted and delivered it.
Key takeaways if you're considering selling in 2026:
Price it right from day one. The market is too informed and too competitive for "testing the waters" with inflated prices. Get a professional valuation, price it fairly, and sell quickly at full value rather than chasing the market down over 12 months.
Know your audience. Buyers shifted in 2025 and if the trend continues, they will look very similar in 2026. That changes how your business is positioned, what should be emphasized by the Certified Restaurant Broker in the ad copy and even how you structure transition. For 2026, make sure you are speaking to the audience that’s interested.
Get your documentation organized now. If you're thinking about selling this year, spend this month getting your financial records, lease documents, and operational materials in order. Buyers in 2026 will be just as thorough (probably more so) than they were in 2025.
Be honest about your current numbers. If 2025 was slower than 2024, say so upfront. Transparency builds trust. Hiding problems wastes everyone's time and kills your credibility when the truth comes out during due diligence.
Timing matters. We're in January right now: one of the two best months of the year to sell a restaurant. If you're ready, list immediately and capitalize on motivated buyers with New Year energy and financing in place. If you need more time to prepare, any month is good for those targeted and serving buyers for the industry.
What we expect to see in 2026:
Based on what we saw in late 2025 and early conversations with buyers and sellers this year, we anticipate:
The restaurants that will thrive in the 2026 market are the ones that look like safe, smart investments, not gambles. Clean financials. Solid leases. Consistent performance. Professional presentation.
What's Next
Timing and understanding today's buyer are critical, but they're only part of the equation. In Part 2 of this series, we'll dive into the nuts and bolts that actually close deals or kill them at the finish line.
We'll cover:
If you're thinking about selling in 2026, Part 2 will show you exactly how to prepare your restaurant to close fast and at full value. Because having the right timing and the right buyer means nothing if your paperwork is a mess or your pricing strategy backfires.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where we get into what separates successful sales from dead deals.
Ready to List Your Restaurant?
If you're considering selling in 2026, now is the time to get your restaurant evaluated. Our Certified Restaurant Brokers can provide a professional valuation based on current market conditions and help you understand what buyers are looking for right now.
Contact We Sell Restaurants today for a confidential consultation at (404) 800-6700 or visit WeSellRestuarants.com