# Format drives the total

Sort these brands by the small end of the disclosed footprint and the totals
refuse to follow. The order that comes out is not close to the order of the
money, it is not even roughly monotonic, and the two filings whose footprints
begin at exactly the same number sit at opposite ends of the whole table. That
is the most useful thing square footage can tell you about an Item 7 total:
not much, and never on its own.

Format does the work instead. Format is what kind of restaurant the table
describes — seated or standing, in-line or end-cap, full or express, one outlet
or a development commitment — and it moves the total in ways area cannot
predict, because it decides which rows exist at all.

## Footprint order is not total order

Every brand here that discloses both a footprint and an Item 7 range, ordered
by the low end of the footprint:

| Brand | Disclosed footprint | Item 7 | Filing year |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 375° Chicken 'n Fries | 800–1,500 sq ft | $324,100–$521,500 | 2024 |
| Döner Haus | 850–1,200 sq ft | $359,500–$586,000 | 2026 |
| German Doner Kebab | 1,200–1,400 sq ft | $690,500–$1,123,000 | 2024 |
| Doner Shack | 1,200–1,800 sq ft | $498,000–$1,007,000 | 2025 |
| Shah's Halal Food | 1,200–2,000 sq ft | $197,000–$405,000 | 2024 |
| The Great Greek | 1,800–2,000 sq ft | $582,014–$1,088,560 | 2023 |
| Mad for Chicken | 2,000–4,000 sq ft | $321,125–$691,700 | 2025 |

The rows in the middle do most of the damage to the intuition. German Doner
Kebab's 2024 table, Doner Shack's 2025 table and Shah's 2024 table all start
at 1,200 square feet. One has the highest high estimate in the group at
$1,123,000; another has the lowest at $405,000. Same footprint floor, and a
gap of $718,000 between those two high columns.

The ends of the table are no better behaved. The largest footprint here,
Mad for Chicken's 2,000–4,000 square-foot full restaurant, carries a high total
below both German Doner Kebab's 1,200–1,400 square-foot outlet and Great
Greek's 1,800–2,000 square-foot in-line or end-cap. At the other end, the two
formats with the smallest ceilings — Döner Haus at 1,200 square feet and 375° at
1,500 — both carry a high total above Shah's 1,200–2,000 square-foot restaurant.
If area drove cost, none of that would be possible.

Dividing the total by the area does not repair the ordering; it only expresses
it as a unit cost, which the [cost per square
foot](/cost-per-square-foot/) chapter works through in four combinations per
brand. The arithmetic there is a way of seeing the mismatch. It is not a way of
removing it.

## The one format comparison held inside a single filing

Across brands, format and footprint and filing year all move at once, so
nothing is isolated. There is exactly one place here where a format change is
observable with everything else held still. Mad for Chicken's FDD
issued 12 March 2025 discloses a Full Restaurant at $321,125–$691,700 on
2,000–4,000 square feet and an Express Model at $243,500–$470,700 on 750–2,000
square feet. One franchisor, one document, one year, one system's
specifications, and two formats. Moving from the 2,000–4,000 square-foot
restaurant to the 750–2,000 square-foot one takes $77,625 off the low estimate
and $221,000 off the high.

That is the cleanest evidence available here that format, not square footage,
is what the total responds to. It comes with two limits worth stating. The
line-item worksheet here is the full restaurant, so dividing the Express Model
total by the full-restaurant footprint would mix two offerings,
and taking the Express Model's low against the full restaurant's high would
manufacture a spread the filing never printed.

The same document's third Item 7 table, a Multi-Unit Development Agreement at
$263,500–$711,700, is not a third format and does not belong in this
comparison. It prices entry into a three-outlet development agreement plus the
first outlet, and its own footnote says the low end assumes that first outlet is
an Express Model while the high end assumes it is a Full Restaurant — so it is
built out of the two formats above rather than describing a third one.
[Reading a multi-unit Item 7](/reading-a-multi-unit-item-7/) takes it in full.

## The format statement says more than an area

The line printed above Item 7 usually contains a fact that changes the reading
of every row beneath it, and square footage is rarely the most important part
of it.

German Doner Kebab's 2024 range is per outlet inside a five-outlet minimum
commitment. A reader treating $690,500–$1,123,000 as the price of opening one
restaurant has misread the offering, not the arithmetic. Great Greek's 2023
table specifies an in-line or end-cap restaurant, which is a statement about
frontage, party walls, and what a landlord delivers as much as about area.
Shah's 2024 table says full-sized restaurant, and the same filing excludes
non-traditional sites from the territory. Döner Haus's 2026 table describes a
single unit in a typical retail space, and the brand is a standing-service imbiss
rather than a seated restaurant, which is why its footprint band is among the
smallest here — the format explains the area, not the reverse.

Those descriptions decide which rows a table needs. A standing-service counter
does not need the seating a full restaurant needs. An in-line unit inherits a
different delivered condition from an end-cap with two exposed elevations. An
outlet inside a five-store commitment is priced with a development schedule
behind it.

## Which rows actually move, and which move the other way

Take four buckets across the itemised filings and check them against footprint.
None behaves as area alone would predict.

Construction inverts most sharply. German Doner Kebab's construction-bucket
rows run $355,000–$680,000 on 1,200–1,400 square feet, while Mad for Chicken's
run $85,000–$255,000 on 2,000–4,000 square feet, and Döner Haus's single
combined row runs $131,000–$266,000 on 850–1,200. German Doner Kebab's
construction low is more than four times Mad for Chicken's, on a floor a
third the size, because
mechanical, electrical, and plumbing at $150,000–$175,000 and fit-out at
$175,000–$205,000 are specification decisions rather than area calculations.

Equipment inverts too. 375°'s 800–1,500 square-foot outlet discloses furniture,
fixtures and equipment at $100,000–$120,000; Mad for Chicken's 2,000–4,000
square-foot restaurant discloses the same label at $85,000–$110,000. The
smaller format's equipment estimate is higher at both ends. The
[equipment](/equipment/) chapter reads that as menu and production line, not
floor plan.

Signage follows frontage and local rules, not interior area. German Doner
Kebab's 2024 signage row is $20,000–$35,000 on 1,200–1,400 square feet; Mad for
Chicken's is $5,500–$9,500 on 2,000–4,000. The [signage](/signage/) chapter is
where that boundary sits.

Opening inventory follows menu and turn. German Doner Kebab's 1,200–1,400
square-foot outlet discloses $15,000–$20,000, and Great Greek's larger
1,800–2,000 square-foot restaurant discloses $7,000–$15,000 — a lower estimate
at both ends on a bigger floor. 375° discloses $5,000–$10,000 and Shah's
$10,000–$30,000. The [opening inventory](/opening-inventory/) chapter treats
those as product decisions.

## Five totals with no footprint at all

Five brands here disclose an Item 7 range and no square footage: The
Halal Guys at $461,400–$1,333,500, Dog Haus at $357,437–$625,800, Crave Hot
Dogs and BBQ at $301,500–$1,192,500, Pepper Lunch at $609,200–$1,471,500, and
Capriotti's at $417,100–$748,500, all from a May 2024 comparative study of
published FDDs. Pepper Lunch's high is the largest figure on these pages
and cannot be placed on the table above, because there is nothing to place it
against.

That is a reminder about what the footprint field is for. It is not a
normaliser. It is one clause of a format statement, and where it is missing the
total simply stays a total — as it does for Wienerschnitzel and bluTaco, which
have fees and unit counts here and no Item 7 at all.

## Before comparing two totals

1. Copy the whole format line, not the square footage: seated or standing,
   in-line or end-cap, express or full, one outlet or a commitment.
2. Note the filing year beside each total. Great Greek's is 2023, GDK's,
   Shah's and 375°'s are 2024, Mad for Chicken's and Doner Shack's are 2025,
   and Döner Haus's is 2026.
3. Check whether the same filing discloses a second format, as Mad for
   Chicken's does, and keep the tables apart. The Multi-Unit Development
   Agreement is a commitment, not a third box.
4. Ask which rows the format removes. An absent seating or signage row is a
   format consequence, not a saving.
5. Read [comparing two Item 7 tables](/comparing-two-item-7-tables/) before
   putting two brands side by side, and
   [what the range hides](/what-the-range-hides/) before treating either
   endpoint as a plan.

The footprint is a useful sanity check on whether two tables describe similar
buildings. It is not a scaling factor, it does not order the totals, and in the
one case here where a format changes inside a single filing, the total moves
without a footprint being restated at all.

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