Acquisitions Anonymous - #1 for business buying, selling and operating - Sports Bar Franchise for Sale (Florida) – $9.4M Revenue Deal Breakdown

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

In this episode the hosts break down a $6.5M three-location sports bar franchise in Florida, debating whether strong cash flow and real estate ownership offset the long-term risks of declining alcohol consumption and the brutal realities of running restaurants.Business Listing – https://www.bizbuysell.com/business-opportunity/multi-unit-sports-bar-franchise-generating-strong-revenue/2357645/Welcome to Acquisitions Anonymous – the #1 podcast for small business M&A. Every week, we break down businesses for sale and talk about buying, operating, and growing them.Looking to build a professional website in minutes? Try Wix: https://wix.pxf.io/c/6898629/3115214/25616?trafcat=templateHubSpot is the backbone for how businesses scale without chaos. Try them out here: https://go.try-hubspot.com/OeG9Vr💰 Sponsored by:Acquisition Lab – Your fast-track to business ownership. Get hands-on support, world-class resources, and join a top-tier community of acquisition entrepreneurs. Schedule your free consultation at https://www.acquisitionlab.com and mention Acquisitions Anonymous!Capital Pad – A platform connecting accredited investors with vetted small business acquisition deals. Discover exclusive opportunities at https://capitalpad.comThis episode explores a three-location sports bar franchise in Sarasota County, Florida, listed for $6.5M with roughly $9.4M in revenue and about $1.5M in seller discretionary earnings. One of the locations includes owned real estate valued at roughly $2.9M, while the other two operate under leases.Key Highlights- $6.5M asking price for three sports bar franchise locations generating $1.5M cash flow.- Approximately $2.9M of the purchase price tied to real estate at one of the locations.- Nearly $3M revenue per unit, which is strong for a casual dining concept.- Discussion about Gen Z drinking less alcohol, creating potential long-term headwinds.- Operating risks include regulation, liability, labor management, and volatile daily traffic.Subscribe to  weekly our Newsletter and get curated deals in your inboxAdvertise with us by clicking hereDo you love Acquanon and want to see our smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.Do you enjoy our content? Rate our show!Follow us on Twitter @acquanon Learnings about small business acquisitions and operations.For inquiries or suggestions, email us at [e-mail]

Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. I'm Connor Gross and join the crew today to talk about a multi-unit sports bar franchise down in Florida. We had a ton of really interesting conversations about the industry. Why Gen Z is a drinking, is that a good thing? And obviously, what impact does that have to the business? But highlighted the episode was I asked Michael what the alternative business that would fill the void for Gen Z would be the equivalent to a sports bar in the next generation. and his answer is going to shock you, so be sure to stick around. As always, I help people find franchises. So if you're interested in getting into the franchise game, feel free to reach out to me. I'd be happy to help you.

But regardless, stick around to the end of the episode. This is one that you will not want to miss. Well, so that Acquisition is Anonymous. Hello, another episode of Acquisitions Anonymous. We don't have 100% beers anymore. And thumbs downing on just the plus inventory alone. Are you ready to take a leap into business ownership, but you don't know where to start?

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schedule your free consultation. And when you do, be sure to tell them the Acquisitions Anonymous podcast sent you. Connor? Well, we had Bill before, but he had to go. But you brought another deal, sports bar franchise. I did bring another deal. In full disclosure, I know franchising, I know nothing about sports bars on the business side of things, but I do, I'm acutely aware of them as on the consumer side of things. So, We'll see how well that translates. Multi-unit sports bar franchise generating strong revenue. This is in Sarasota County, Florida.

The asking price is $6.499 million. The revenue is about $9.4 million. Cash flow is $1.5 million. Wow. Popular sports bar and fast casual dining franchise with three locations and opportunities to open additional locations. Customers enjoy consistently good food, great drinks, friendly service,

and a reliable experience every time that they visit. whether for a drink with friends, the big game on Sunday, or dinner with the family. Experienced franchisor or restaurateur looking to grow and expand long-term multiple franchises, each location generates over $3 million in revenue in 2024, resulting in over 400K of SDE per location. Two locations lease, and the third enjoys the benefit of owning their building with a land lease. Take advantage of 16 years of loyal client growth to build and expand these businesses with the opportunity to increase locations. This may qualify for a visa.

Only buyers, qualified buyers may consider SBA financing. NDA verifiable, or verifiable source of funds, resume and resume, I mean, to receive details. $40,000 of inventory, including at asking prices,

700K of FM&E, 98 employees. The seller will provide four weeks of training and their reason for selling is other interests slash retirement. And they confirm that this business is an established franchise. I have no idea what franchise it is. So it could be anything from Chili's to Applebee's to something you've never heard of. Could be. Those sound to me like this

wouldn't be on Bizby sell if it was Chili's and Applebee's, but I could be wrong. A lot of those are pretty consolidated. But it does say, so they were established in 2009. So it's definitely something that's been around for a little while. I also missed. So real estate sounds like is including $2.9 million in real estate is what they share. So that must be the one building that they own. Yeah. So they lease two and they own a third one. It is fascinating the valuations that get put on some of this real estate

where so often you see like, oh, the real estate here they have it worth $3 million. And then you ask them, well, what are you paying yourself in rent? They're like $50 a month. It's like, okay, well, these two things don't work together. This sounds too good to be true, though, because if it has $1.5 million in cash flow, the asking prices $6.5 million, but $2.9 of that is real estate. Why does this sound like a good deal? Am I missing something? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, besides it being a sports bar in Florida, I mean, that's kind of...

Right, but, I mean, it's half of, almost half of the asking prices in real estate. Yeah. That's a pretty big hedge on the risk of voting a sports bar. Been around since 2009, so 17-year. not bad. The revenue per location is pretty incredible. Like, that's a big check. Well, I guess it's not that crazy, right?

You're doing $3.1 million per location. That's not stupid in terms of the revenue on. Yeah, and I mean, you know, margins in the mid-teens-ish, which, you know, for this kind of a business, I think, is strong. do you know anything about this industry like sports bars in general not if you looked at any before no not really i mean it kind of goes to the restaurant being a restaurant tour is really hard um i'd be curious just like what is the caliber of the franchise here is it a known brand with something unique that brings people in you know my time i've spent in florida like

there it's just strip mall after strip mall and there are so many any just random like gators sports bar with kitchen there. And there's a lot of people in them because there's not much to do in Florida except sit around and drink and get sunburned. I just lost half of our listenership in Florida. So sorry, sorry everybody. But there's a lot of people who are sitting there. Let's just like drinking bud lights inside of these bars when I go past them on Tuesday nights,

you know, in Florida. So it's very much part of the culture in Florida. for sure. I would be very interested in that and understanding what the client base looks like. So I live in Durham, North Carolina. I went to school in Chapel Hill and still, which is much better than Durham. So I spend a lot of time in Chapel Hill, which is obviously a college town. And so I go to a lot of these sports bars just like on a random not to meet with someone and they're dead. And then I go in on a game day and obviously they're just packed out. And every time I just think about like, how does this business owner,

manage cash flow when their revenue is that volatile, not on a monthly basis, but literally on like a day-to-day basis. And so, yeah, I don't know how that impacts the P&L and to what degree, but I think it would be a lot more attractive to find something where it has an established customer base that is frequenting it, you know, throughout the week rather than something that's very driven by one-time events. They are asking here for an experienced franchise or, I think they mean experience franchisee or restaurateur looking to grow and expand to a long-term franchise.

And then they quote the cash flow as SDE, sellers discretionary earnings. I wonder how much the owner is spending a lot of time hand-holding these restaurants to make them this profitable. Because this is really good. Like they're making $1.5 million on $9.4 million in revenue. Like that's really good for the restaurant. industry to be doing that well based on you know stuff i've seen in the past and and i could be wrong

there but like it feels like these are being really well run and it makes me wonder what's the secret you know is the owner in there hands dirty all the time yeah where did you see that they're looking for an experience oh yeah um this balloon right i see right yeah yep i see exactly right and i am i'm seeing that more and more um in the food industry that brands are uh specifically asking to bring on people that have industry experience, which I think in the food industry is a very good thing,

because I think that most people starting a business should not dive-fed first into food without any experience. So, but yes, that also could be an indicator that they're just very much involved in the operations.

I mean, 98 employees, like that's, that definitely you know, it definitely starts to make me sweat, but then you look at the revenue number, and it's not, you know, it's not completely out of whack, given the most of these people are going to be part-time. Well, that's pretty standard for restaurants, right,

or even fast food places? Yeah. What's the number that a typical Chick-fil-A employees, like 80 people or something like that? It's ridiculous. It's a good point. Yeah. So it's actually not as bad as I would think. And it says employees,

I wonder how many of them are actually W2. I guess a lot of the back of the house people for sure are. So actually pretty reasonable. Sarasota, not the worst place to be in the whole world. I mean, it's no North Carolina, but pretty good. Yeah. I don't know a ton about the different revenue streams and something like this, but a friend of mine that owns a brewery.

I mean, he makes, like, ridiculous margins on the beer that he brews and basically breaks even on everything else, like the food. obviously makes money on drinks. But so I'm curious how that impacts things if you're not brewing your own deer. I would assume that definitely the margins on that take a hit. So I'm just curious where that, what are the revenue streams in this where they're making all of that money? Yeah, I don't know enough about the industry to know. I mean, this is a great case in point why an experienced, you know, franchisee or a experienced, you know,

restaurant tour is the right person probably to buy a business like this because you know what you're getting into. Yeah, I don't even know where those guys make their money. I mean, my suspicion always with these like micro, you know, brewhouses and stuff like that is, there's a lot of hidden costs they don't factor in when they're brewing their own beer, you know, because it's fun to brew your own beer. But it just, from a logical standpoint, doesn't make sense that brewing your own beer and a small scale. scale is going to give you a cheaper per beer cost than just having Budweiser delivered when they have 150 years of figuring out how to do that at scale, you know, very cheaply and efficiently.

Right. But yeah, I have no idea how these guys make money or where the profits are. So zooming out a little bit, I'm curious, Michael, what you think about like this industry long term? Because like generationally, have you seen the stats on Gen Z's alcohol consumption? Drinking? Yeah. Yes. not good if you're selling alcohol not if you're selling alcohol i honestly i have mixed feelings

about it because i i do think that alcohol is is terrible for you and you know obviously has a lot of downsides and i also think that uh frankly for gen z it's like the the damage to your liver that that it does at 25 years old versus the uh the damage that social isolation that if you're not you know using alcohol as a social lubricant can uh can lead to i i i i i i i I think Gen Z should drink more, but that's my, that's my, my, my, I take. Oh, man, I thought we're going to get to argue about this, but you're agreeing with me. Like, I'm actually telling my kids, like, I actively tell my kids, like, go out and get in trouble. Go, go, go do some stuff.

Go out and have some fun. Go take some risks. Go get, get nuts. So, they're listening, I think. Yeah, I've heard Scott Galloway talk about this. And his line is, make reasonable, bad decisions that might. pay off or something like that, you know. So I've talked to, I mean, I've talked to my kids about why,

why there's this level of trepidation. It's, it is a function of several things, but one of the biggest ones is making those kind of mistakes is so much higher risk now than when I was a kid, right? I'm 51. So like if you were to go back and look at some of the stuff, me and my friends did, when we were 19 years old, like, there is no way

we were, like, not going to be living. Like, if you fast forward those actions to today, like, there's a potential for those actions to stay with you for the rest of your life. And, like, I mean, if you're interested, just go look at Instagram or TikTok where ladies are talking about their dating experiences and basically shaming men for making mistakes

or even talking to them, right? And so if you go talk to these young, men, the risk reward is so out of whack where they're just like, it's not worth it to even try because look at this, I could, I could, I'm risking total social isolation and shaming at a period of life where I really just want to belong, which is high school and college. Like, it's not worth it anymore. And frankly, like, the women are not making it any easier by going out and like shaming these men, even anonymously. So it's, I appreciate what Galloway saying, it's a tough thing to fix because of the way technology and culture is right now.

It is. And then it's like, yeah, okay, you get shamed, you know, for a bad decision, or not even a bad decision, a mistake that you made, which forces you into social isolation. And now we have, you know, AI chatbots that, you know, Gen Z guys can go and fulfill, synthetically fulfill, you know, the void of social isolation that that brings. and I think that it would be much better to go out to a sports bar, like the one that we're evaluating right now. And the other thing is, is like, I do think that, like, well, I mean, weed, cannabis has, is now, like, those rates have skyrocketed. And I do think that, like, scientifically, scientifically speaking,

yes, I do think that alcohol is worse for you than cannabis for your body. But the, again, the social dynamic there, is completely the inverse. Alcohol typically makes you more social and cannabis makes you less social. So yeah, they need to drink more. We need to drink more. I'm still jizzy. Hey everyone, it's Bill. And I want to tell you about maybe the most exciting sponsor we've had in a long time on the pod. It's called CapitalPad. And it is the thing that I wish existed when I started my journey of operating and investing in small businesses. So CapitalPad is a marketplace. for acquisition entrepreneurs, that is people who want to buy a business and need capital to list

their deals and solicit capital from other people who want to invest in acquisition deals. So if you want to back somebody buying a small business, CapitalPad is a place to do it. And if you want to buy a business and need capital, you can go on CapitalPad to be introduced to investors. So the really great thing, too, from the investor side is that CapitalPad takes care of all of the details that can get hairy with small business acquisitions. They handle standardized terms, standardized governance, standardized distributions all up front in black and white. Basically, CapitalPad professionalizes investing in small businesses. And the returns can be really, really good. I'm so stoked they exist. It's founded by my friend Travis, who is a phenomenal entrepreneur

in his own right. So if this sounds like something that is appealing to you, if you want to buy a small business and need capital, or if you want to invest in small businesses, go check out Capitalpad.com and tell them that Acquisitions Anonymous sent you. It's interesting, like, to keep harping on this, I'm seeing more and more younger Gen Zs just being totally disinterested in having any online footprint at all, right? And, you know, they're just like, I don't want to be, I don't want somebody to squad us. I want somebody to be able to know who I am. Like my kids are just like totally disinterested in all social media because they're just like, yeah, screw it.

Like there's no upside to this. So they're checking out. So my hope is that, you know, post-COVID and all the impact that it had on these young people, that they'll kind of snap back to kind of the middle of the pendulum swing, so to speak, and get out and have an adventure. And I am seeing that. Like, it's just taking them low of those and say, my generation did. We were doing crazy shit at 14, and this generation's waiting until they're 24, hopefully.

Yeah, yeah. So with that said, from a business case, though, I would be very concerned about the long-tail investing in something where if what we're assuming is through, which is that their profit is very heavily skewed towards alcohol sales, I just think that with that being as necessary as, it is to this thing staying afloat, I, despite a good deal, would be very, very hesitant to jump in this my guest. Would you agree? Yeah. I mean, I think it's, there's, there's definitely not a lot of tailwinds, like younger generations are small, they're not drinking. I've seen, since I stopped drinking, I've seen my, my spend per night out go down significantly, because there's no $60, $70 I would bottle of wine on the bill with it. And I'm just like, I'll have a club soda.

So that is definitely a tailwind. I'd be interested in seeing when somebody dug into this business, like, where's your profit and what is the trend rate in each of those profits? I think you bring up a great way. So, and what do you think, as you had to predict, what could be the Gen Z equivalent of a sports bar? Like, given the changes that we've seen, what is a business opportunity that may in the future build a void that would be left if bars die out.

Not die out, but they go, you know. So far I'm seeing two things. Like there's, there is some evolution of like Discord chat rooms that has to grow for folks. My kids have a lot of online friends that they've never met in person. And so I think there's some evolution that will happen there around online communities that are for sure, for real. You are seeing like elder Gen Z doing these.

Maybe you've seen on like these coffee raves and stuff. Are you familiar with these? Yes. Yeah, so it's a crazy deal. Like people go out, don't drink anything, totally sober, go to like 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning to like a rave at a coffee shop. I don't know about you, but I'm 6'5, goofy looking, and I am incapable of dancing in normal light with no alcohol involved.

So I have no dance, but these people just go to do it. It's pretty impressive to watch. Yeah. I know, I mean, I have friends in California, they've said that their equivalent of, like, going out in the traditional sense is like everybody just goes and takes edibles and goes and gets ice cream or something. You know, so there's a, like, people still want to go out and want to interact with people in real life. It's just, I just think that it's going to look different 20 years from now than what, you know, it has in the past in terms of the varsity and stuff. I still have your novelty bars in every city that, you know, everyone visits. It's a poorest attraction and is a draw, but I just think it's going to be really challenging

to run a business like this and develop a loyal, standing custom base. I'll give you, you ask for a business idea. I'll give you a better business than this. Sorry, church. These people are going to churches. Churches are a great business. I mean, it's... Nobody wants to do.

The customer retention tool of salvation is a great, it's a lot of leverage that you can use to maintain customers. You know, it's flat pricing based on your revenue, you know, 10% of your income goes to the church. Kind of like a franchise. It's funny. I never thought about that parallel. Yeah. No taxes. No taxes.

Oh. Have you seen like a lot of churches now, they're not even building buildings. They just meet in like a school. so they have very effective use of real estate. Let's go plant a church, Michael. This sounds fun. I run around some folks that are very, they're atheists and very violent atheists.

And so they went nuts because a local evangelical, like, startup church talked the school district into renting out their theater at the local school for church service. And my atheist friends are like, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? Like, this is not what's supposed to be going. on from a community sports standpoint. So it was kind of funny. But yeah, you continue with,

I was going to also say, the craziest thing about the church business is it's one of the few businesses where you don't actually, like, your gratification period is enormous, right? Because you bring somebody in the religion and it's like, okay, you're going to heaven or hell. Like, well, you're not going to know for another 40 years.

So see how it goes. Like, there's no NPS score because like it doesn't, you know, you're not getting there. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're not looking to buy a church today. We're looking to buy a sports bar.

So I think I don't know. We'd be smarter to start a church than start a sports bar, but the acquisition opportunity we have in front of us, I don't hate it as much as like I thought I would because of the real estate that's included and because of, I mean, they tend to be, seem to be performing well. So I think that on this spectrum of sports bar deals that we could evaluate, this seems like a pretty good one,

understanding the same, yeah. I think this all comes down to the brand. Is this a good brand you want to be in, or is this like Gators, rando thing, right? Is it, like, let me give you a better spectrum. Is it Margaritaville or is it like Gators, random sports bar trashy, Bud light signs on the, you know, and Miller light signs on the wall type thing. And where is it in the middle of the spectrum?

And, you know, if it's, you know, and then as you double click on that, are you in Chili's, or are you in one of the dying brands like TGI Friday? It's like, you know, there's two different, two different things. So I think ultimately, like, that's how somebody should evaluate this, not based on historical performance. It's all about, like, what's going on with this brand and what is the future of it. And, you know, you see what Chili's is doing, doing really well. and you see how TGI Friday is to clear bankruptcy,

and then what are you getting? Because it's all about it. Yeah, totally. And particularly if they have a more transient customer base, like a Margaritville obviously would. They have a lot of, in fact, I know someone who invested in a Margaritaville in a condo in a Margaritaville resort,

and they were just talking about how that is like exactly what they pay for is they have this database of all of the Margaritaville customers that they market to, and that's what inflates the, the value. And so there may be a similar dynamic here if it's a more touristy spot, which I would expect, you know, Sarasota potentially do. But yeah, there's always a part of me that has said, like, I would love to own a bar. And I have that thought for like two seconds before the rational side of me kicks in and says, I'm just going to own other businesses and then

make money and spend my money in bars. Yeah, I think before you're away. Yeah. Yeah. I think before you get into this, it's worth going to visit with a few of the people who are already franchisees and see what kind of cars they drive, see how healthy they look, see how happy they are about their life. I had a friend, actually, he owned a bar, and they did fine.

You know, one of those doing like a million dollars a year in revenue, and he would take home $200,000 a year. He said, hey, here's why it was horrible. Here's why it was horrible. your clients are people who are there doing chemical therapy for damages that they have right people that show up at a bar at midnight on a Tuesday night are not there because it's a healthy thing to do then on the other side like the employees are often there because they can't get any other jobs and then you have your last data point which is the authorities

like at least here in Texas they treat you like you're a default criminal like the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, like small bar owners are basically the scourge, because these guys want to have zero drunk driving deaths, and they attribute the bar owner as the criminal in that situation, not the person who got themselves drunk and went and got an accident. So you have scummy people doing scummy stuff, and the government is out to harass you and hurt you at every turn. He's like, he's like, I'm quitting.

He quit it, basically. you open a crossfoot jump. He's like, I'm going to go do something healthy. Yeah. And get away from all of this. And that's a huge point that we didn't even hit on is the liability of something like this. Like there is absolutely no upside to, you know, from a PR standpoint to being a borrowner. It's like the only, there's only doubt, no one's going to go have a great time and you get nearly the amount of PR upside as somebody that goes and, you know, and crashes or, you know, or worse.

So there's only downside there. And I mean, I know bars where I live that have been effectively shut down, not because, you know, they were told legally they shut down, but they just had so much legal blowback. They couldn't withstand it, you know? And so, again, there are ways to drive 1.5 million of EDA that don't have the same level of liability in my opinion. There's easier ways to do it.

It feels like that's my conclusion on this deal. For the right person who really loves this, and you can think, man, running a restaurant, which is basically just like a daycare center for adults with problems, both employees and the customers, like if that seems like fun to you and you want to do that and that's your calling, terrific. For everybody else, I think there's a better way to get rich. Completely agree with. Yeah, I was just trying to think if there's anything to talk about this. Yeah, if anybody buys this, let us know because we would have figured out what's wrong with you.

Let me know. I'll be a customer. I'll come down to a family in Clearwater, so I'll be down as a customer, but I will not be on your cat table. So best luck. My in-laws live in Fort Myers, and they love it,

but we go visit, it is so boring. It's so boring. And Sarasota's just right there. I mean, and maybe it's more exciting the closer you gets in Tampa, but it is the most boring.

Yeah, I don't know a better way to describe it. You're not a Florida guy. You're not a Florida guy, which is funny. I think there's a lot of, yeah, I agree with you. There are a lot of Florida people that are probably not San Antonio people either. So it would be a fun debate to have.

I'm not even sure I'm the San Antonio person. I'm going to be on the beach in Santa Monica and go skiing in, you know, in Salt Lake, a person. I think that's who I've turned out to be. So and write it by salt. I think that's what I do. There you go. All right. Cool.

All right. Well, hey, this isn't going to talk about. I mean, stuff like this is out there. It's a great. You can make a living doing it. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, it's a first world problem to be like, I don't want to make a million and a half dollars. But I feel like there's things that are better for me. But maybe it's the right thing for somebody else. Agreed. Cheers. Cool. All right, everybody, thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this episode, please tell a friend about us and then about Connor. Do you want to give a quick shout out for your business, Conner? Oh, sure. Yeah, I own franchises, but I'm also a franchise consultant. I just help people that. want to get into franchising to find the right opportunities to evaluate them and to get them funded. So feel free

to reach out to me. My website is Connorgrace.com. You can book a call there, join the newsletter. All the good stuff. Amazing. All right, everybody. Thanks for being here. And thank you to you, Connor. Thanks, Michael.