Food & Beverage · registry year 2024 · HQ SC
Denny's Franchise
A Denny's Corp brand operating in the food & beverage sector, franchising since 1963. According to the 2024 FDD filing for Denny's, this is an editorial comparison record; it does not reproduce the brand's current FDD.
- $1.3M – $2.4M
- Initial investment · Higher entry cost
- 4.5%
- Royalty rate · Below-average royalty
- 1,650
- Total locations · Large network
- $2.1M
- Avg unit revenue · Above-average unit revenue
FDD outlay schedule
Registry denny-s Denny's
Denny's needs $1.3M–$2.4M to open and charges a 4.5% royalty - an entry cost above the typical food & beverage franchise.
- LO $1.3M
- HI $2.4M
- FEE $40K
- ROY 4.5%
- UNT 1,650
- I19 Disclosed
- INV# #23/223
- UNT# #69/223
Same-sector Item 7 peers
Nearest Item 7 peer: Noodles & Company ($1.3M)
Same-sector Item 7 neighbourhood for Denny's (registry year 2024). Listed lows only - not a profit, cost-of-living, or suitability claim. Verify the current FDD before relying on these figures. How we place brands →
Franchise Opportunity Health Score
How healthy and transparent Denny's's franchise system looks, from 2 of 2 tracked dimensions.
- Network momentum -2.4% net unit growth (YoY) 0/100 · F
- Financial disclosure Item 19 disclosed 100/100 · A
Benchmarked against the 223-brand tracked corpus (p10-p90 range per dimension); a higher score means a growing unit count and a disclosed Item 19. See how we place brands.
Where Denny's's investment ranks nationally
Denny's's listed Item 7 low of $1.3M against every one of the 218 tracked franchise brands with a disclosed initial investment. Listed figures only, verify in the current FDD before relying on them.
Denny's vs all tracked franchise brands by listed investment
Initial investment low (FDD Item 7), PlainFranchise brand corpus
$1,300,000 Higher than most higher than 89% of 218 franchise brands
Franchise brands, banded by listed Item 7 low
Each bar is a $0.001K-wide band; taller bars hold more franchise brands. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source PlainFranchise editorial comparison registry · 2024-12-31
Investment Overview
- Franchise Fee
- $40K
- Ad Fund Rate
- 1.6%
Revenue Data (Item 19)
- Average Revenue
- $2.1M
- gross revenue per location
* Revenue figures are gross revenue (sales), not profit. This registry does not report operating costs or profit.
Network Size & Growth
Net Growth Rate
Year-over-year unit change
70 locations closed in the last reporting year
Quick Facts
- Sector
- Food & Beverage
- Subsector
- casual dining
- Founded
- 1953
- Franchising Since
- 1963
- Headquarters
- SC
- FDD Year
- 2024
- Item 19
- Disclosed
Important Notice · Denny's
This Denny's page is a registry comparison record, not a verified FDD extract. It does not establish suitability, operating costs, profitability, or expected results for Denny's.
Large-network capital outlay for Denny's
Signature read: 1,650 locations · Item 7 low $1.3M
Denny's, a Denny's Corp franchise, has been franchising since 1963 - 10 years after the concept was founded in 1953 , currently with 1,650 total locations (1,650 franchised, 0 company-owned; 100% of the recorded total is franchised) in the food & beverage sector, headquartered in SC. This editorial registry lists a total initial investment from $1.3M to $2.4M, with separate listed low and high values. A franchise-fee field of $40K is recorded separately, while the registry summary does not reproduce the full Item 7 schedule.
Royalty payments here are set at 4.5% of gross sales; the registry also records a 1.6% advertising-fund field, for a 6.2% arithmetic total. The registry records an Item 19 field for Denny's. Financial-performance disclosure in Item 19 is voluntary under the FTC Franchise Rule. The reported average gross revenue per location is $2.1M; applying the listed royalty rate to that reported average yields $95K as a simple arithmetic illustration, not a cost or profit estimate. Revenue is not profit; this registry does not contain a complete operating-cost or profit record.
Unit count is trending down for Denny's: a 2.4% net contraction year-over-year with 70 closures on the record. The percentage does not identify why the count changed or what it means for a specific location.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a Denny's franchise cost?
How many Denny's locations are there?
What are the ongoing fees for a Denny's franchise?
Related reading for Denny's: Understanding FDDs , Denny's lists Item 19 revenue here, how Item 19 fits the 23-item FDD.
Snapshot uses the registry's listed Item 7 initial-investment low and Item 20 location-count fields. It is a descriptive comparison, not a ranking or investment recommendation.
How Denny's's Item 7 and Item 19 fields are labeled (expand)
Nationwide brands with similar investment or network size
Two data-derived peer sets for Denny's , both outside HQ state SC : nearest Item 7 lows and nearest total-location counts, not the same-sector roster below.
Similar listed investment
Nearest Item 7 lows ($1.3M here).
Similar network size
Nearest total location counts (1,650 here).
What to do with this
Denny's at a glance, drawn from the same figures above.
- Denny's scores 50/100 (F) on our composite opportunity read, combining net unit growth and Item 19 financial-disclosure transparency.
- Its $1.3M – $2.4M entry cost runs above the typical food & beverage franchise.
- Ranks #23 of 223 listed franchises by initial investment. See rankings
- Noodles & Company sits at a comparable investment level ($1.3M) in the same sector. Compare
Editorial comparison registry, not a source-linked FDD record. Verify the current FDD before relying on any figure.
Read our methodology - what this registry can and cannot establish.
Source: PlainFranchise editorial registry Record-level FDD source link and retrieval date pending
| Publisher | PlainFranchise |
| Sources | Public state franchise disclosure registries and FDD filings |