Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream Franchise Cost & 2026 FDD Data
48/100
Second tier
48 this brand53 Full-Service Restaurants medianlikely 34–62: narrower with more SBA loans (low confidence)
Higher is better · an editorial assessment, not investment advice
#1,869 of 3,068 graded brands
Why a B: Helped by legal record. Held back by unit economics, unit growth and scale. See all six factors
- Total investment
- $547K – $1.4M
- Full-Size Restaurant (Counter Service and Hybrid) format
- Avg gross sales
- $969K
- gross sales, not profit
- SBA charge-off
- 5 resolved of 5 loans: too few to judge
Data from the FDD filing + SBA 7(a) records. Analysis by FranchiseVerdict · Methodology · Website · Report an error · Franchisor? Claim this listing
FranchiseVerdict summary · 2026 FDD
Per the 2026 FDD, a Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream franchise requires a total initial investment of $547K – $1.4M for the Full-Size Restaurant (Counter Service and Hybrid) format (the filing prices $323K to $1.4M across two formats), including a $40K franchise fee. Once open, the ongoing royalty is 6.0%. Per the 2026 FDD, average gross sales were $969K (company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance; gross sales, not profit). Verdict grade: B (Second tier), an editorial assessment, not investment advice.
Sources: 2026 FDD · What one unit could make and lose →
Sources, dates and evidence
FDD issued: · Last cited check: · Staleness risk: low (issued within the last 12 months)
Evidence for the headline figures: thin✓ Investment (Item 7)✓ Item 19 status✓ Units and owners (Item 20)✗ SBA loan coverage✗ Litigation (Item 3)✗ Financial statements (Item 21)✗ Franchisor identityhow this is scored7 of 7 headline figures on this page cite a page of the filing.
Overview
Quick verdict · vs Full-Service Restaurants median
Top edge: green = better than the Full-Service Restaurants median by more than 10%, red = worse by more than 10%, gray = within 10% or no benchmark. Source: FDD filings + SBA 7(a).
Data from public FDD filings and SBA records. Methodology
Bottom line
- RETURNSAverage gross sales of $969K/year (outlet median $948K; company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance; company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance; gross sales, not profit).
- GROWTHIn the latest Item 20 year, the number of franchised outlets did not change (3 opened, 3 closed).
- DECLINE-6 franchised outlets between the first and last year-ends Item 20 prints (35 to 29, -17.1% in total, -9.0% a year compounded). Ask whether closures are franchisor-driven (consolidation) or franchisee-driven (economics).
AT STAKEOne unit at the Item 7 midpoint: $123K a year in payments on assumed SBA 7(a)-style terms.You put in about $191K of your own cash and personally guarantee a $762K loan. Assumptions are labeled in Sales; not investment advice.See what one unit could make and lose
Things to check before you sign (2)
- -6 franchised outlets between the first and last year-ends Item 20 prints. Ask owners why outlets closed.
- Limited data: this page holds only part of the filing. Read the FDD itself before relying on any figure here.
Checked and clear: no auditor doubt that the franchisor can keep operating. Not on file here, so ask: pending litigation, SBA charge-off rate against the category median, competition inside your territory, jury-trial waiver, supplier rebates and owner-operator rule.
What to do next
Step 1: Read the FDD itself.
Free: the franchisor must give it to you at least 14 days before you sign or pay. Or look it up in a state registry (Wisconsin, Minnesota, California). What to read first.
Step 2: Talk to current and former owners.
Free: Item 20 of the FDD lists every current owner and those who left last year, most with a phone number. Questions to ask.
Step 3: Talk to an SBA lender.
Free: the SBA's Lender Match. Ask what you would personally guarantee and what the monthly payment would be. If you plan to use retirement savings, ask a CPA about the rules for that first.
Step 4: Have a franchise attorney review the FDD and agreement.
Free: your state bar's lawyer referral service can name franchise lawyers, and many offer a short first consultation. Bring the checks listed above.
Research steps, not investment or legal advice.
Can you afford it, and what does the money buy?
Entry cost (the Item 7 midpoint) is 10% below the Full-Service Restaurants median ($1.1M).
Source: FDD 2026 · Items 5–7 (fees and startup costs)
Do you qualify? The filing states no minimum net worth or liquid capital. Ask the franchisor and your lender what they require, and keep living costs for the first year outside the deal.
Item 7 (startup costs) · 2 formats · 2026 FDD
Every building format
The filing prints a separate Item 7 table for each format.
2 formats, from $323K to $1.4M
| Format | Total investment | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Full-Size Restaurant (Counter Service and Hybrid)(the range shown above) | $547K – $1.4M | p.17 |
| Delco Facility | $323K – $787K | p.18 |
FDD Item 7 (startup costs) · 2026 filing
Initial investment breakdown
| Cost component | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $40K | $40K |
| Working capital (first 3 months) | $84K | $153K |
| Equipment, build-out, other | $423K | $1.2M |
| Total initial investment | $547K | $1.4M |
Source: Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream 2026 FDD, Items 5 and 7[2]. “Equipment, build-out, other” is computed as total minus disclosed line items above.
Item 6 · what you pay once you are open
Ongoing fees
| Fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Royalty | 6.0% |
| Marketing / ad fund | 1.8% of gross sales |
| Total fee loadabove the Full-Service Restaurants median of 6.4% (heavy) | 7.8% of sales |
What do units actually make?
Average gross sales are 48% below the Full-Service Restaurants median ($1.9M).
Source: FDD 2026 · Item 19 (sales and earnings)
Items 6 (other fees), 7 (startup costs) and 19 (sales and earnings) · assumptions labeled
What you could make and lose: one unit
What one Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream unit would ask of you, from the filing's Item 7 total and labeled assumptions.
Average gross sales are $969K (FDD p.42), and the royalty and ad fund take about $76K of that a year (Item 6). This brand's Item 19 does not print cost lines. Enter your own from a lease quote, a payroll plan and calls with current owners. So this box does not estimate a profit. To cover the loan payment alone, one unit has to clear $123K a year after its food, labor, rent and other costs and the franchisor's fees.
How these figures are worked out
- Loan (assumption): 80% of the $953K Item 7 midpoint (Full-Size Restaurant (Counter Service and Hybrid) format) is a $762K loan, paid over 10 years at 10.5%: $123K a year. SBA 7(a)-style terms on a long-term rate; your lender sets yours.
What you put at risk
Your own cash in: about $191K Assumption (the part the loan does not cover of the $953K Item 7 midpoint), plus whatever anything Item 7 leaves out (its notes say what). The loan is $762K.
Personal guarantee. SBA 7(a) loans require a personal guarantee from anyone who owns 20% or more of the business. If the unit cannot pay, the lender can collect from you personally, which can include your savings and your home. The worst case is losing the cash you put in and still owing the rest of the loan.
Gross sales are not profit, and none of these figures is take-home pay until tax and every operating cost are paid. The assumptions are ours, not the filing's. Not investment advice.
Returns modelOne unit · several units · editable
One unit
One unit: what is left after the loan payment
Gross sales, minus the franchisor's fees and the operating costs, is the unit's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Minus an assumed loan payment, that is what is left for you, before tax. Gross sales are not profit.
This brand's Item 19 does not print cost lines. Enter your own from a lease quote, a payroll plan and calls with current owners. Invested capital is the Item 7 total, which already includes its working-capital (additional funds) line.
Returns model · one unit
What would one Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream unit leave you each year after the loan payment?
Item 19 reports $969,040 per unit. Company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance.
Gross sales, not profit: the costs below decide what is left.
This brand's Item 19 does not print cost lines. Enter your own from a lease quote, a payroll plan and calls with current owners.
Illustrative category typicals, not sourced to any filing, survey or sample. Replace them with figures from franchisee validation calls before you rely on the output.
Item 7 midpoint of $547K to $1.4M
Item 7's $84K to $153K additional funds are already in the total
Left after the loan payment · per year
The unit's EBITDA minus the assumed loan payment. Before tax, depreciation and any cost your inputs leave out (insurance, accounting and legal, licenses, technology fees): not take-home pay.
Gross sales are not profit. Neither the filing nor a stated assumption on this page supplies COGS, labor, rent / occupancy and other operating costs. Enter your own (a lease quote, owner calls) and the model runs on it.
Loan of $762K at 10.5% over 10 years, an assumption, not a quote. Return and payback are before tax, depreciation and the costs above. The loan usually needs your personal guarantee.
Buying several existing units? The acquisition scenario
Buying several units
What buying a few existing units could return
Prices an existing operator of a few units off the single-unit EBITDA above, after shared services, and finances it with an SBA 7(a) loan, a conventional loan and a seller note. It shows the yearly return on your cash (IRR), whether year-1 earnings cover the loan payments (DSCR) and how the price is paid for. It starts at 5 units; every deal term is an assumption you can change, and none is from the FDD.
Not modelled yet
Gross sales are not profit. Neither the filing nor a stated assumption on this page supplies COGS, labor, rent / occupancy and other operating costs. Enter your own (a lease quote, owner calls) and the model runs on it.
This scenario starts from a per-unit EBITDA. Fill in the operating costs in the one-unit model above and it runs on that figure, or take it to the full ROI workbench, where the multi-unit and acquisition models accept your own per-unit economics.
These models are for research and scenario planning only. Not investment advice. Actual results depend on your specific location, management, and market conditions. Consult a franchise attorney and accountant before signing any franchise agreement.
Item 19 · Source: 2026 FDD
Financial performance
Percentile ranks within Full-Service Restaurants
Each rank is among the Full-Service Restaurants brands that report that figure (the count is under each bar).
vs Full-Service Restaurants medians
How Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream compares
Category median of published Full-Service Restaurants brands that report the figure; the middle half spans the 25th to 75th percentile and n counts the brands behind it. Medians are used because a few very large systems pull an average far from the typical brand. Revenue is disclosed gross sales, not profit.
Who are you contracting with?
Item 1 of the filing names the franchisor and its parent; we have not extracted them for this brand yet. The FDD itself is the source.
Is the system healthy?
-6 franchised outlets between the first and last year-ends Item 20 prints (35 to 29, -17.1% in total, -9.0% a year compounded).
Source: FDD 2026 · Item 20 (outlets opened, closed and transferred)
Item 20 (outlet counts) · unit dynamics
The growth chart
- Company-owned
- 3
- Corporate units in the system
Item 20 · franchised units at year end
Franchised units fell from 35 in 2023 to 29 in 2025
Axis does not start at zero.
Source and method
Government records
SBA loan data
Aggregated from SBA loan disclosures. This brand has only 5 7(a) loans on file; statistical reliability is limited below 10 loans.
- Loans on file
- 5
- SBA 7(a) loans matched to this brand, incl. those still being repaid
- Loan volume
- $1.0M
- Average loan
- $204K
- loan volume divided by loans
- Charge-off rate
- 5 resolved of 5 loans: too few to judge
- Insufficient SBA coverage: 5 loans, rate hidden below 10
- Paid in full
- 5 resolved of 5 loans: too few to judge
- Recent-loan charge-off
- 5 resolved of 5 loans: too few to judge
- Lenders
- 5
Cumulative: every 7(a) loan matched to this brand in the SBA’s FOIA files, approved FY1991 onward. Historical lending data, not predictive of future performance. How SBA charge-off rates are calculated
Explore lender portfolios on Bank Reports or regional data on State Reports.
What are the risks?
Main risk: a shrinking system. Franchised outlets fell from 35 to 29 over the two Item 20 years.
Source: SBA 7(a) FOIA · FDD Items 3, 21
Verdict grade + FDD Items 3 (litigation), 4 (bankruptcy), 8 (required suppliers), 16 (what you may sell), 21 (audited financials)
Risk and legal
Grade B: Second tier, 48/100 (category median 53); the full grade is at the top of the page.
How the grade is built
Why a B, factor by factor
- Financial health NeutralNo going-concern doubt
- Unit economics Weighs on itAvg gross sales $969K on a $953K investment midpoint, 1.0x (gross sales, not profit)
- Unit growth Weighs on it, weakest dimension-6 franchised outlets between the first and last year-ends Item 20 prints (35 to 29, -17.1% in total, -9.0% a year compounded); turnover 9.4%
- Scale Weighs on it29 franchised units, +3 company-owned (32 in all)
- Legal HelpsLitigation not read
- Transparency NeutralItem 19 status not confirmed (neither credit nor penalty); no franchisor financial figures on file
From the six scored dimensions, an editorial assessment, not investment advice. How the score is built
What are you signing up for?
Ongoing fees run about 7.8% of sales (royalty + ad fund), before your own operating costs.
Source: FDD 2026 · Items 11, 12, 17
FDD Items 12 (territory), 15 (owner participation) and 17 (renewal, termination and disputes)
Contract and territory detail
Items 5 (initial fees), 7 (startup costs), 12 (territory) and 20 (outlet counts) · development agreement
Area development (several units)
A development fee of $40,000 per unit you commit to, credited toward each unit's franchise fee while you keep to the schedule.
Every term, with its page
- Development fee
- $40,000 per unit committed.
2026 FDD p.1
“If you choose to acquire development rights to establish and operate multiple restaurants under an Area Development Agreement, in addition to the investment required to establish each franchise restaurant you will pay us a development fee of $40,000 for each franchise you commit to develop.” - Credit against the fee
- $40,000 per unit is credited toward each unit's initial franchise fee.
2026 FDD p.11
“When you sign the Area Development Agreement, you also will sign a franchise agreement for the first Restaurant, and we will credit $40,000 of your development fee payment to fully satisfy the initial franchise fee due under that first franchise agreement.”
Each unit still needs its own Item 7 investment on top of the development fee ($40K times the units you commit to). Have a franchise attorney read the schedule and the default terms before you sign.
Items 10 (financing), 11 (training and support)
Training and operations
- Time to open
- 6–18 mo
- From signing to launch, a Full-Size Restaurant or DELCO Facility (FDD p.27)
Franchisee contacts
We hold no owner list for this brand. Item 20 of the FDD lists the current and former owners; the free FDD is the source.
Frequently asked questions
How much does it cost to open a Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream franchise?
Per the 2026 FDD, the total investment to open a Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream franchise ranges from $547K to $1.4M for the Full-Size Restaurant (Counter Service and Hybrid) format, with an initial franchise fee of $40K. Across every format the filing prices, totals run from $323K to $1.4M (two formats). This is the Item 7 total in the Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD): the startup costs the franchisor lists, such as build-out, equipment, inventory and working capital. It usually leaves out buying land or a building; Item 7's notes say what is excluded.
What do Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream franchise owners earn?
According to Item 19 of the Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream FDD, average gross sales were $969K (company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance; gross sales, not profit). The median is $948K. Company-owned outlets only - not franchisee performance. What an owner keeps depends on location, operating costs and management.
What is Item 19 in the Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream FDD?
The FDD section where a franchisor may disclose financial performance of its outlets. Disclosure is optional and formats vary; figures are typically gross sales, which is revenue before expenses, not profit. FranchiseVerdict extracts these figures directly from the Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream FDD and qualifies whose outlets they describe.
What is Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream's franchise failure rate?
There is no published franchise failure rate, and Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream has too few resolved SBA 7(a) loans on file (fewer than 10) to show an SBA charge-off rate that would mean anything. The SBA charge-off rate is the share of a brand's resolved SBA 7(a) loans to its franchisees that the SBA wrote off, including purchased guarantees. Resolved means paid in full or charged off; active loans are excluded because their outcome is not yet known. It is a lending outcome, not a count of closed businesses. Review the turnover and closure figures in Item 20 of the FDD and speak with current and former franchisees.
How many Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream franchise locations are there?
Per the 2026 FDD, Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream has 29 franchised units and 3 company-owned (32 in all). In the latest year, the number of franchised outlets did not change (3 opened, 3 closed).
Is Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream a good franchise to buy?
FranchiseVerdict gives Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream a B Verdict grade (Second tier) with a verdict score of 48 out of 100 (higher is better), an editorial assessment, not investment advice. Helped by legal record. Held back by unit economics (avg gross sales $969K on a $953K investment midpoint, 1.0x: gross sales, not profit), unit growth and scale. The “Why a B” section on this page lists all six dimensions and any adjustment. Speak with current franchisees before making any investment decision.
Other Full-Service Restaurants franchises
Similar investment first, then by grade
This information is provided for research purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Verify all figures with the franchisor's current Franchise Disclosure Document before making any investment decision.