Signage

Signage is one of the few Item 7 rows that sounds like a single object — a blade, a channel letter, a window vinyl — and still fails as a cross-brand comparison. The estimate may cover only the primary identity sign, or it may include interior graphics, menu boards, drive-through signs, monument signs, permits, engineering, installation, and electrical. A filing that omits the row has not disclosed $0 of signage; it has put those costs inside another line or left them unnamed.

The league table at the end of this chapter includes only the brands that printed a signage-bucket row. Great Greek has no such row. Its restaurant package of $225,964–$248,560 is the place a reader might look next, and the filing does not say whether signs live there.

The four disclosed signage lines

Brand	Filing label	Low	High	Share of that brand’s high total
German Doner Kebab	Signage	$20,000	$35,000	3%
Shah’s Halal Food	Signage	$10,000	$28,000	7%
Mad for Chicken	Signage	$5,500	$9,500	1%
375° Chicken ‘n Fries	Signage	$10,000	$12,000	2%

GDK’s $20,000–$35,000 is the highest band and still a small slice of a $690,500–$1,123,000 outlet. Shah’s $10,000–$28,000 is the widest relative spread: the high is 2.8 times the low. That width is the story. A second-generation space with an existing raceway and landlord-approved blade can sit near the low end; a mall pylon, a monument on a pad, or a landlord that requires all-new storefront letters can sit near the high end. The Item 7 cell does not say which of those projects it priced.

Mad for Chicken’s $5,500–$9,500 is the lowest band in the itemised set, on the largest footprint (2,000–4,000 square feet). 375°’s $10,000–$12,000 is a tight band on an 800–1,500 square-foot outlet. Neither figure includes the information a sign contractor actually bids: square footage of letters, illumination, structural engineering, city sign code, landlord criteria, and whether the electrical feed already exists at the fascia.

What usually sits next to the signage row

GDK separates Furniture & Fixtures ($15,500–$20,000) from signage. Interior brand graphics can land in either row depending on how the franchisor wrote the footnote. Shah’s Marketing Supplies line of $2,000–$7,000 is coded as other, not signage; window clings and opening posters may live there, on the signage line, or on Grand Opening Campaign ($1,000–$5,000). The dataset does not split those labels, so this chapter does not either.

Technology can overlap when menu boards are digital. GDK’s Hardware and Software is $27,500–$30,000; Shah’s POS and computer line is $4,000–$6,000; Mad for Chicken’s POS is $3,000–$15,000. A digital menu board purchased with the POS will not appear in signage. A static menu board purchased with the identity package will. Ask the footnote, then ask the vendor list in Item 8.

Construction overlaps when the storefront itself is the sign: new glazing, a bulkhead, a raceway, or a landlord-required façade upgrade. GDK’s Fit Out Materials & Installation of $175,000–$205,000 and Shah’s Build-Out/Construction of $80,000–$160,000 are the rows where that work can hide. Adding a signage cell to a construction cell double-counts if the fascia work is already in build-out; omitting both undercounts if the landlord criteria arrived after the Item 7 estimate was written.

Permits, landlords, and the unused raceway

A city sign permit is often a separate cash event from the sign itself. Licenses and permits may already include it. GDK’s Business Licenses are $1,000–$5,000; Shah’s Licenses, Permits are $1,000–$3,000; Mad for Chicken’s Business Licenses and Permits are $2,500–$5,000; 375°’s are $2,000–$5,000. Great Greek’s Utility Deposits/Licenses of $1,000–$3,000 combines two unlike things. None of those rows is a sign-permit quote, and a monument sign on a state highway can exceed the entire licenses high end by itself.

Landlord criteria can exceed city code. A shopping center may require illuminated channel letters in a specified typeface, forbid a blade, or require the tenant to join a pylon that has no remaining panels. A second-generation restaurant may have a raceway that cannot accept the new brand’s letter height. Those constraints are lease and criteria-book facts. They are not visible in the four numbers in the table above.

The second-generation versus shell chapter covers the broader delivered-condition test. For signage the short version is: photograph the fascia, the pylon, the interior glass, and the electrical feed before treating the Item 7 low as the bid.

Worked example: do not annualize a sign

Shah’s high signage figure of $28,000 against a $405,000 printed total is 7 percent of opening investment. GDK’s high of $35,000 against $1,123,000 is 3 percent. Ranking those percentages as “Shah’s spends more on brand identity” confuses a one-time installed-cost estimate with a marketing program. Shah’s grand-opening campaign is a separate $1,000–$5,000. GDK’s pre-launch and grand opening marketing is a separate $10,000–$15,000. Mad for Chicken’s grand opening advertising is a fixed $15,000. Those are campaigns. Signage is hardware and installation, unless the footnote says otherwise.

Minnesota’s public Shah’s Halal filing is the place to read the Shah’s signage footnote next to the fixture package and the build-out line. A filed Great Greek disclosure is the place to confirm that no signage row appears in that Item 7 at all.

Signage checklist

1. Copy the filing’s signage label, or note that the filing has none.
2. List every required identity element from the brand book: primary sign, blade, window vinyl, interior graphics, menu boards, directional signs, drive-through, monument, pylon panel.
3. Mark which Item 7 row is supposed to pay for each element — signage, fixtures, technology, construction, grand opening, or unnamed.
4. Price permits, engineering, installation, and electrical as separate lines if the quote does not already include them.
5. Read the landlord’s sign criteria before using the Item 7 low.
6. Ask recent franchisees what the installed sign package actually cost, including change orders after landlord review, as the FTC’s FDD walkthrough recommends for opening costs generally.

Code, landmarks, and interior graphics

A historic-district or landmark façade can forbid the channel letters the brand book assumes. That fight is a sign-variance fee, an architect’s time, and sometimes a different identity package. It will not show up as a fourth column in GDK’s $20,000–$35,000 Signage row. Put it on the worksheet as a site quote against signage or against professional fees.

Interior graphics — wall murals, menu boards that are not digital, window hours, directional signs to restrooms — are the items most often left off a storefront bid and then rushed in the last week. Shah’s Marketing Supplies of $2,000–$7,000 may cover some of that. GDK’s furniture-and-fixtures row of $15,500–$20,000 may cover millwork that has the logo in it. Great Greek’s restaurant package may cover it and may not. Walk the brand book against the Item 7 labels before treating the signage high as the identity budget.

Illumination and night-time photographs are a landlord-criteria issue as much as a city-code issue. A shopping center that requires internally illuminated letters, a raceway painted to match, and a photocell will price differently from a second-generation box that will accept a non-illuminated blade. Mad for Chicken’s $5,500–$9,500 is the band that most needs that distinction written down, because it is the lowest disclosed signage range on the largest footprint.

The injected comparison below sorts the four disclosed signage rows by high estimate. Great Greek will not be in it. That absence is the fifth data point.