New Franchisee Incentive: Sunny Street Café® Slashes Franchise Fee, Reduces Royalties

After achieving double-digit sales increases year-over-year for three consecutive years, Sunny Street Café®, the emerging breakfast and lunch franchise with 22 open locations, has launched a generous franchisee incentive to encourage even more entrepreneurs to break into the industry with a proven model.

“Our system is really healthy right now; our franchisees have been able to build generational wealth and get the family involved,” explained Mike Stasko, president. “We’re launching this incentive with the idea that this model is a great fit for folks looking to build a legacy. We have that track record, and now, we’re lessening the burden of upfront costs and cash requirements.”

> With the new incentive program, the Sunny Street Café franchise fee is cut in half — now just $17,500, with 0% royalties at opening, ramped up through your first 18 months. This both lowers the barrier to entry and allows new franchisees to keep additional cash on hand for operations as they navigate the early days of ownership.

Incentive program details

Sunny Street Café is also considering exclusive, multi-store territories in prime markets, meaning franchisees are able to protect their areas from competition with the option to build multiple locations and scale with the brand should they choose.

As a family-run company, Sunny Street Café has 10 family-owned restaurants in the system, and the leadership team uses its firsthand experience in the restaurants to continue adapting and shaping processes. Rather than leading solely from the top, the team puts itself in the position of a franchisee to ensure all systems are as robust as possible and blind spots are avoided.

Through its well-developed systems, Sunny Street Café has seen fantastic results, including record-setting revenue and continued reinvestment from franchisees.

Company strategy

“We have skin in the game, so we’re always driven to leverage that experience and keep improving at the store level for all of our owners,” said Stasko. “But this experience also means that we understand everything that goes into launching a café, and we know what it can mean to have that extra financial flexibility and cash available.”

In order to support even more entrepreneurs in building a legacy for themselves and their families, the Sunny Street Café team intends to offer this incentive through the end of the first quarter in 2024.

As franchisees continue to reinvest, it’s clear the system is seeing great results, and Stasko said they have found the equation that drives unit-level success.

Unit level success

“Our prime costs are best-in-class. We’ve honed our operations and systems to the point that food and labor costs are better than they’ve ever been,” he explained. “Top line growth and great prime costs makes for a great equation for growth.”

In addition to costs and revenue being balanced, Sunny Street Café has built strong momentum with an exploding catering program that outshines any other in the industry. Stasko explained that this specific offering has little to no competition in the breakfast and lunch space, and it is especially successful because the team has worked carefully to hone transportation and packaging, meaning Sunny Street Café catered meals are just as delicious on-site as they are in-café.

This is just another way that Sunny Street Café drives revenue in the hot breakfast and lunch segment. With optimal demand and lifestyle benefits like increased flexibility that simply don’t come with other traditional restaurant concepts, Sunny Street Café offers an unmatched opportunity for passionate entrepreneurs.

“This is a great way to be a part of something more,” said Stasko. “Once you decide that this concept is right for you, you can pretty easily extrapolate just how much of an impact this incentive program will have on you over the first year or two of operations. The forecasting shows that the benefit is not just a drop in the bucket; it represents a significant investment from the franchisor. This is us showing you that we’re in it with you and truly want you to be successful.”