# Grand opening

A grand-opening row is a launch campaign estimate: media, opening-week
promotions, sometimes a required spend paid to the franchisor. It is not the
ongoing brand fund, not local advertising, and not signage. Item 6 continuing
fees start when sales start. Item 7 grand opening is supposed to be the money
spent to announce that they have.

The league table at the end of this chapter includes only grand-opening-bucket
rows. Great Greek will not be in it. The 2023 Great Greek brand record states
that grand opening is included in the restaurant package. That is a packaging
fact, not a $0 campaign.

## The disclosed campaign rows

| Brand | Filing label | Low | High |
| --- | --- | ---: | ---: |
| German Doner Kebab | Pre-Launch, Soft Launch and Grand Opening Marketing | $10,000 | $15,000 |
| Shah's Halal Food | Grand Opening Campaign | $1,000 | $5,000 |
| Mad for Chicken | Grand Opening Advertising | $15,000 | $15,000 |
| 375° Chicken 'n Fries | Grand Opening Advertising | $10,000 | $10,000 |

Mad for Chicken and 375° disclose fixed amounts, not ranges. GDK discloses a
band that also names pre-launch and soft launch. Shah's discloses the widest
relative spread on the smallest dollars: $1,000–$5,000. Those labels are not
the same campaign.

GDK's wording is the broadest. Pre-launch, soft launch, and grand opening can
mean three events: hiring ads and local awareness before opening, a friends-and-family
or limited-hours period, and a public opening week. The $10,000–$15,000 band
may be all three or a required payment that does not cover the buyer's own
flyers. The footnote in the 2024 filing is the authority.

Shah's $1,000 low will not buy much media in a New York-area trade area. It
may be a required minimum, a kit of materials, or an estimate that assumes
the operator's labor. **Marketing Supplies** of $2,000–$7,000 sits next to it
in the other bucket. Minnesota's public [Shah's Halal
filing](https://cards.web.commerce.state.mn.us/documents/%7B9078B29B-0000-C21E-982F-C2FDAFB07783%7D/download?contentSequence=0&documentClass=FRANCHISE_REGISTRATIONS)
is where those two rows either share a footnote or do not.

## Great Greek: included, not absent

Great Greek's restaurant package is $225,964–$248,560. The brand record for
that 2023 filing says grand opening is included in the package. This directory
does not pull a campaign dollar out of that package. A buyer still needs to
know, from Item 11 and the operations materials, whether “included” means a
required program the franchisor runs, a credit, or a kit of artwork. The
[restaurant package](/restaurant-package/) chapter leaves the bundle intact
for the same reason.

If a first-time Great Greek buyer also pays the $39,500 franchise fee rather
than the $35,550 affiliated-brand discount, that difference is still not
grand-opening money. Keep the fee on the [franchise fee](/franchise-fee/)
line.

## Neighbors that are not the campaign

[Signage](/signage/) is hardware. GDK $20,000–$35,000; Shah's $10,000–$28,000;
Mad for Chicken $5,500–$9,500; 375° $10,000–$12,000. A grand-opening banner
can sit in signage, in marketing supplies, or in the campaign row. Adding all
three without a footnote double-counts the vinyl.

Ongoing advertising is Item 6. GDK's 2024 filing discloses a 3 percent brand
fund and 2 percent local advertising, waived if the store joins a cooperative
that can itself levy up to 2 percent. Shah's discloses 1 percent brand fund
and 1 percent local. Great Greek discloses 3 percent with a right to raise to
4 percent, plus 1 percent local. Mad for Chicken discloses 1 percent brand
fund plus 1 percent media marketing, each able to rise to 2 percent, plus
1 percent local. 375° discloses 1 percent brand fund and 1 percent local.
Those rates belong on the monthly model from the first dollar of sales. They
are not extra rows to add into Item 7 grand opening.

Opening inventory feeds the campaign if the promotion is a discount or a
giveaway. GDK's opening inventory is $15,000–$20,000; Shah's is $10,000–$30,000;
Mad for Chicken's is $14,250–$28,200. A buy-one promotion that is not in the
inventory first fill will hit additional funds instead. The
[working capital](/working-capital/) calendar should show it.

## Worked example: fixed $15,000 versus a $1,000–$5,000 band

Mad for Chicken's grand opening is $15,000 on a $320,125–$687,700 total for a
2,000–4,000 square-foot restaurant. That is 2 percent of the high total and
5 percent of the low. 375°'s $10,000 is 2 percent of $521,500. GDK's high of
$15,000 is 1 percent of $1,123,000. Shah's high of $5,000 is 1 percent of
$405,000.

The percentages cluster; the buying power does not. A required $15,000 paid
to the franchisor's agency is a different cash event from a $5,000 estimate
the operator spends on local ads. Item 7's “to whom paid” column is the
difference. The FTC's [compliance
guide](https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/plain-language/bus70-franchise-rule-compliance-guide.pdf)
requires that column; copying only the amount into a spreadsheet throws it
away.

## Grand-opening checklist

1. Copy the campaign label, or note that Great Greek includes it in the
   restaurant package without a separable dollar amount.
2. Read “to whom paid” and whether the amount is a required purchase from
   the franchisor.
3. List pre-launch, soft launch, and public opening as three events if the
   label names them, as GDK's does.
4. Keep signage, marketing supplies, opening inventory, and Item 6 funds on
   their own lines.
5. Put discount-driven food cost on the first-month cash calendar.
6. Ask recent franchisees what they spent in the opening month besides the
   Item 7 cell, following the FTC's
   [FDD walkthrough](https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/05/franchise-fundamentals-taking-deep-dive-franchise-disclosure-document).

## Soft launch, aggregators, and the first-week discount

GDK's label is the only one that names a soft launch. A limited-hours week
with a smaller menu is an operating event: payroll, inventory, and occupancy
are already running, and Item 19 is not the subject of this page. The
grand-opening cell may pay for signs and ads around that week; it does not
pay the wages. Put the soft-launch payroll on the
[working capital](/working-capital/) calendar.

Aggregator-funded opening promotions — boosted placement, delivery credits —
can look like a grand opening that someone else paid for. They are trade
spend, they have terms, and they can concentrate discounting into the first
month. 375°'s $10,000 and Mad for Chicken's $15,000 will not show those terms.
If the franchisor requires a particular aggregator at opening, that is Item 8
and Item 11, not an extra Item 7 row.

Community events and influencer nights are easy to add after the FDD year.
They are the buyer's campaign unless the footnote required them. Shah's
$1,000 low is the cell that most obviously cannot fund an event series. Use
it as a minimum, then build a local plan, rather than treating the high of
$5,000 as a media budget for a New York-area trade area.

## Timing against construction and possession

Campaign deposits are often due when the media is booked, which may be before
the health department has set an opening date. A delayed hood test then
turns prepaid ads into wasted spend or into a reschedule fee. GDK's
construction-bucket high of $680,000 and Great Greek's leasehold high of
$650,000 are the projects most likely to move the opening date. Book the
campaign against a contractor's substantial-completion date, not against the
Item 7 grand-opening cell.

The injected comparison below sorts disclosed grand-opening rows by high
estimate. Great Greek will be missing. Look at the restaurant package, not at
a blank, for that brand.

---
HTML: https://donerhandbook.com/grand-opening/